


My Wild Heart Which Bleeds

by Euterpein



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood and Violence, F/F, Human/Monster Romance, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Ineffable Wives | Female Aziraphale/Female Crowley (Good Omens), Monster Crowley (Good Omens), Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:29:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26640691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euterpein/pseuds/Euterpein
Summary: Warnings, secrets, and lies; monsters in the mist and in the mind. A woman with black clothes and red hair, whose past is as elusive as it is dark.Who can Aziraphale trust when she can't even trust her own eyes?
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 44
Collections: Trick-Or-Treat!





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the absolutely wonderful [Jamgrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamgrl/pseuds/jamgrl) for the beta and to [NaroMoreau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau), [TawnyOwl95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TawnyOwl95/pseuds/TawnyOwl95), and [silvercolour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercolour) for the cheerleading, suggestions, and ideas!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for implied/referenced sexual assault in this chapter.

The ticking of the antique clock on the wall was a loud and comforting counterpoint to the otherwise stifling stillness of the room.

Gabriel sat in his favourite winged armchair. He had pulled it close to the fire that night, the better to ward off the pervasive chill that had started to steal its way over the countryside over the last couple of weeks, the last gossamer vestiges of summer finally giving way to autumn’s inevitable turnings. He’d been sat by the fire most of the evening, buried in a mound of expense reports and employee evaluations that he had gone through one by one with a critical eye. 

There was a knock at his door. 

It startled him, and he frowned slightly as he looked across the sitting room to the front entrance. It was nearly eleven now, far too late for visitors, and night outside his windows was black as pitch—there was no-one nearby, and his cottage wasn’t visible from the road. His frown deepened.

The knock came again, more insistent this time. Gabriel put the papers he’d been holding carefully on the little table beside him. He refastened the buttons above his waistcoat, just in case, and smoothed out imaginary wrinkles in his trousers before he strode over to the door.

He tugged on the heavy brass set in polished oak. The porch light was too bright, harsh on his eyes after the dimness of the fire-lit room within, and he got no more than a quick vision of a tall figure in all black before he had to shut his eyes against the sting of it. He blinked a few times, sucking in a sharp breath in surprise at the sudden disorientation. Finally, after a few moments of rubbing and blinking, his swimming vision finally came back into focus.

The woman on his doorstep was young; perhaps in her very late teens or early twenties. She had fetching red hair that fell in voluptuous curls to the small of her back, and wide green eyes that were currently looking at him in some concern. She was shivering in the cold, arms wrapped tight around bare shoulders, the thin dress she wore no match for the autumn’s biting chill.

“Are you alright, mister?” the girl said, apparently concerned. 

Gabriel shook himself, slightly. “Yes! Sorry, I just…it’s nothing. Are you alright.?”

The girl chewed on her lip, her eyes darting nervously around her and into the dark. “I’ve made a mistake,” she admitted, apparently deciding that telling him the truth was better than whatever her alternatives were. “I had an argument with my boyfriend, and he kicked me out of the car. He just left me, in the middle of nowhere…” Her voice warbled slightly, warping with the weight of the tears that were welling up at the corners of her eyes. She wrapped her arms around herself even tighter.

“He just left you here?” Gabriel frowned, sympathetically. “All alone?” 

A single tear slipped down the girl’s porcelain cheek as she nodded, miserably.

Gabriel hesitated for just a moment, debating with himself, before he went on. “Why don’t you come inside? You’re shaking.” He stepped back from the door, holding the way open for her to step inside. 

She offered him a rather watery smile as she took him up on his offer, moving past him in the narrow hallway and into the warmth of the sitting room. She sighed as the heat of the fire washed over her. Gabriel shut the door behind her and beckoned her to follow him into the kitchen.

“Go ahead and sit down,” he said, pointing to the sleek glass table at the side of the room. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

He moved about his spotless kitchen for a few moments, putting everything together, then turned back to where the girl was slumped at the table. She was staring off into the middle distance, seemingly lost in whatever grief she was facing. Gabriel gave her a few more moments to collect herself before he said, softly, “Do you have anyone you can call? Anywhere to go? I could drive you somewhere, if you needed me to.” 

More tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t—I don’t think so,” she said, weakly. “I was living with him. I didn’t—I don’t—” she let out her first actual sob, covering her mouth and turning away from him to try and stifle the noise.

Gabriel sighed quietly to himself. She was obviously in a desperate situation. A babe lost in the woods. A poor, pathetic thing.

The fire under the kettle went off with a little _whumph_ as he turned the knob. He kept his back carefully facing the girl while he poured the kettle into a pot and watched the tea curl slowly into the water, listening to the sounds of her carefully bringing her breathing back under control. 

When it sounded like she had succeeded, Gabriel poured some of the tea into a couple of porcelain cups and loaded them onto a tray, which he brought to the table. Her eyes were still a little bit red and puffy, but she had managed to subdue herself before her cheeks could get splotchy and discolored. Gabriel was grateful for it. 

She managed another of her little weak smiles as he placed the tray down on the table in front of her, gesturing for her to make up her cup before he moved to add milk to his own. He sat down beside her at the table. “I’m sorry for all of this,” he said, earnestness dripping from his voice. “What your boyfriend did to you was really awful.”

“It’s honestly probably for the best,” the girl said, sighing heavily as she sipped her tea. “He was an arsehole anyway.” 

Gabriel chuckled at that. The girl had some spunkiness beneath the heavy grief, that much was evident. All the better, in his opinion. 

“I can’t say I knew him, but I’m sure you’re right. He sounds like a piece of work.”

She smiled up at him again, nearing something genuine this time. A step in the right direction. “You know, in all this fuss, I forgot to ask your name.”

“Gabriel,” he said, offering his most charming grin. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” She had stopped shaking, finally, and seemed to be relaxing around him a little more. Her smile widened, open and gentle. “Thank you for the tea, Gabriel. This was really quite kind of you.”

He waved a hand in front of himself, as if to dismiss the thought. “I couldn’t leave a poor thing like you out in the cold, now could I? And look…” he leaned towards her a little bit, as if sharing a secret, “I think I can do you one better.”

“Can you?” Her delicate brow wrinkled in confusion. 

“I know you don’t have anywhere to go, and I can’t in good conscience just turn you back out in the cold again.”

Her eyes turned downwards, almost embarrassed. “I know this is a lot to dump on you. I’m sorry.”

“Nonsense.” Gabriel said it firmly, but gently enough not to startle her. “You can stay here as long as you need. It’s really no trouble. Besides, you might find that you’re even more comfortable here than you were at that arsehole boyfriend’s of yours…” Feeling somewhat brave, he let his hand fall to her leg, onto the still-cool skin just below the line of her dress.

She tensed a little, but otherwise didn’t seem to react to this advance. “You know, Gabriel,” she said, fiddling with the delicate handle of her teacup, “I think I’ve heard of you, actually.” She still didn’t meet his eyes.

“Is that so?” Gabriel said idly, instead focusing on moving his thumb in gentle, soothing circles over the soft skin of her thigh. “I suppose I should be honored, then.”

“You manage the woolens processing factory next town over, right? Some of the girls there talk about you.”

It took a few seconds for what she had said to penetrate into his idle thoughts. His thumb stopped its movements. “Do they?”

“They do.” The girl—Gabriel hadn’t gotten her name, how had that happened?—finally turned her bright green eyes back to his. There was no grief behind those eyes now. No desperation, no gratitude. There was only _cold_. “They’ve told me stories about you, _Gabriel_. And not terribly nice ones.” 

A feeling of pure ice poured down his back, raising every hair on his body in the process. Gabriel tried to scoot his chair back away from her, but found that his wrist was caught in an iron grip. She had moved so fast he hadn’t even been able to see it happen.

“What—” he started, but stopped with a pained grunt as the grip on his wrist tightened painfully. 

“You know,” the girl went on conversationally, still holding her tea as though she wasn’t keeping him in a death grip with her other hand, “you really could have saved yourself all this trouble. I don’t work on rumors. If you had tucked me into bed untouched, I would have been gone by morning. No mess, no problem.”

“I won’t—I swear I wasn’t—” he nearly screamed as she took his wrist and _twisted_ , beyond the point the joint should allow, sending searing pain shooting up his arm to his elbow.

She took a calm sip of tea. “I really suggest you stop talking,” she said, peering down at him dispassionately where he was now hunched over the table. “Not that it’s going to help you, mind. It’s just annoying me.”

Gabriel sputtered a bit, his mind swimming and his gut churning with the pain from his arm. “W-why?” he managed to choke out, panting up at her.

“You _know_ why. Man of God like you—don’t think I didn’t notice the bible quotes on your fridge, very classy—you should know well what _sin_ is. But here’s the part you _don’t_ know.” In the blink of an eye she had stood up, tugging so hard on his pinned arm that Gabriel _did_ scream, and dragged him off his chair until he crashed down to the ground.

He laid on his back, blinking up at her for a moment in a daze. The kitchen light framed her red hair like a halo, nearly blinding him again, but he could tell she looked different than she had a moment ago. Older, sharper. More _predatory_. Her eyes, which had been bright green, seemed in this strange light to be much closer to yellow.

“The part you don’t know,” she went on, stepping over his prone form and squatting down until she hovered right above his face, “is that I’m very, _very_ ,” her hand splayed on his chest, over his heart, little pinpricks of unnoticed claws digging into his skin, “ _hungry_.”

The ticking of the antique wooden clock in the sitting room echoed through the empty, quiet halls, dutifully taking down the minutes for a master that would never need them again.


	2. Into the Mist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine.”
> 
> -J.S. Le Fanu, _Carmilla_

Not a single sliver of moonlight pushed through the insistent clouds that night. It might have made the evening more pleasant, if one had, or at least given Aziraphale the light to see by, reflected and glittering in the sputtering rain. As it was, Aziraphale was forced to make her way down the sodden road in a dark truer than pitch, one hand feeling along the sheep fence that was her only guide. 

She had been walking this way for nearly an hour. In that time, not one single car had passed down this long-forgotten by way, nor had there been a single house along the way with windows aglow to guide her somewhere safe and warm. It had been just her, stomping slowly through the increasingly muddy moorland along the rough wooden fence, fumbling in the dark.

There was a sudden glimmer of light from behind her, a bright flash that cut like a knife through the all-encompassing darkness. Aziraphale turned and saw the dim beams of a pair of headlights cutting through the sheets of rain, heading towards her. She felt her heart race and she scrambled away from the fence and almost into the road, waving her arms about to try and grab the driver’s attention. 

The lights were nearly blinding as they approached, growing brighter and brighter until they were nearly all Aziraphale could see, the rest of the world drowned out in their glow. The driver seemed to see her flailing even through the rain and slowed to a stop beside her.

It took a few moments for Aziraphale’s eyes to adjust as the headlights went past her, but when they did, she almost didn’t believe them.

The car that had stopped was a hearse. The front cabin, which might once have been sleek, looked as though it had been through the wringer more than once. The windows had been tinted purposefully dark, impossible to see through even if it had been the middle of the day. 

Aziraphale looked down at it, her heart pounding. She did desperately need a ride, or at least some kind of assistance, but the hearse was making her nervous. She felt suddenly even more aware that she was in the middle of an unfamiliar motorway, lost and alone.

While Aziraphale hesitated, blinking, the window she stood next to began to roll down. Aziraphale jumped at the movement, fighting the urge to step away from her only potential source of rescue. It came down slowly, in fits and bursts, very slowly revealing the car’s dim interior.

The driver was a young woman, much to Aziraphale’s relief. She was a couple decades younger than Aziraphale, perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties, and quite attractive in a rather severe sort of way. Her eyes, just visible in the dim light of the cabin, took in Aziraphale's bedraggled appearance with a piercing look that betrayed a sharp sort of intelligence. 

"I'm guessing that was your car I saw a couple of miles back?" she asked in a soft American accent.

Aziraphale blinked at her. "You're not Scottish."

"Neither are you." The woman quirked her eyebrow in obvious amusement. 

Aziraphale shook herself. "Sorry, yes, you're right. I'm afraid I'm quite out of sorts tonight. That was my car you passed--I broke down and couldn't manage to contact any tow services."

"No service out here," the driver confirmed. "Were you headed into Killech?"

"Just outside it, actually. I bought a little cottage out by the cliffs."

The woman's eyebrows raised. "The one at the end of Tannoch lane?"

"Er--yes, actually. Are you familiar with it?"

"You could say that." She seemed to consider Aziraphale again, focusing on her as though she could parse out some hidden truth about her just by looking. Aziraphale shifted under the intensity of the scrutiny. Finally, she seemed to make a decision. "Why don't you get in? I'll take you up to the cottage, and you can get your car towed in the morning."

Aziraphale breathed a sigh of relief. "That would be absolutely wonderful, if it's not too much trouble." Aziraphale waited as the woman unlocked the door for her and let herself in, apologizing profusely for the water and the muck she was tracking in, which the woman waved off.

"This thing's seen worse, believe me."

"Yes, well, I suppose it must have done, being a hearse and all."

The driver blinked at her. "Right," she said, mildly. "Yeah, of course."

There was a rather awkward silence between them as the hearse rumbled to life beneath its driver's hands and was steered out onto the dark motorway, which Aziraphale felt practically compelled to fill despite her companion's obvious preference for the quiet. "I'm Aziraphale, by the way," she babbled. "Terribly kind of you to pick me up like this. It would have been quite a long trek to the cottage for me, I think."

"If you made it to the cottage."

Aziraphale stared at the side of the woman's head. "What do you mean, dear?"

There was a long pause. The woman appeared to be debating with herself about something again. Eventually, she said, "It's easy to get lost around here. The turnoff is easy to miss, I'll show you when we get there."

"O-oh." Aziraphale cleared her throat, a little nervously. "Er--what was your name, dear? You never said."

"Oh, sorry. It's Anathema."

Aziraphale was mildly delighted by that. "Is it really? I'm not sure I've heard that used as a name before. It's always nice to meet someone else with a name no-one else has heard of."

"I've heard of your name."

"Have you really?" That caught Aziraphale by surprise. A few people throughout the years had identified her name as that of an angel, but none had ever been able to identify it.

Anathema nodded, eyes still glued to the road. "Genesis 3:24. 'And the Lord put at the Eastern gate of Eden a Principality with a flaming sword which pointed every way, to guard the way to the Tree of Knowledge. And the angel's name was Asiraphael.'"

"But--but it only says that in the original Hebrew!" 

Anathema flashed her a smile. “That’s right.”

“Are you some kind of a biblical scholar, or something?”

That earned her a full-on laugh. “Something like that, I guess. I had a bit of an advantage, though, on your name.” She reached up and ran a hand along the rosary that hung from her rear-view, tracing the beads until she reached the cross. 

Aziraphale followed the movement with her eyes. Now that she looked closer she could see that the cross wasn’t the same ancient wood of the beads but rather a heavy silver, swinging at the end of the long leather cord. It looked old, ancient even, the tarnish in the grooves throwing the design into sharp relief. There was no Jesus on the cross which would normally have been standard for a rosary. There was no Mary, for whom the prayers were actually spoken. Rather there was a figure in flowing robes with indistinct features, one arm outstretched, the other holding aloft a flaming sword. 

"May I?" Aziraphale asked. Once Anathema had nodded her assent, she reached out, brushing her own fingers against the silver. Beside her, Anathema let out a breath she seemed to have been holding, though Aziraphale wasn't sure why. Apart from the relief, most of the cross was well-polished, worn smooth, as though nervous fingers had sought solace in its familiar geography often enough and long enough that the tarnish hadn't had the chance to take anywhere else. 

Curious, she flipped the cross over to peer at the other side. On its back was carved a few words in Hebrew.

"What does it say?" she asked, squinting in the dim cabin light at letters that hadn't been familiar to her in decades. "I recognize 'Asiraphael,' of course, but the rest is a bit beyond me."

"It says 'Be as Asiraphael, protector of humanity.'"

Aziraphale frowned at her. "I thought Asiraphael was protecting the Tree of Knowledge?"

There were a few moments where nothing but the beat of the rain and the hearse's wipers disturbed the silence between them. 

"If the knowledge that the Tree gave humanity hurt them," Anathema began, carefully, "are protecting the humans and protecting the Tree from the humans not the same thing?"

Aziraphale didn't know quite what to say to that. 

Not five minutes later, Anathema pointed out the turn off the main road that would lead to Aziraphale's cottage. It was indeed difficult to spot, especially on a night like this; paved with loose stones that had become nearly choked with grasses, only the break in the fence line gave any evidence it existed at all. The gravel path wound up a steep embankment and the hearse navigated it with some difficulty, sliding and sputtering against patches of mud scattered across the surface. 

Finally, the head lamps alighted on a moderately sized cottage. Aziraphale practically melted in relief. "Oh, thank goodness," she breathed. "It looks like the movers have been in alright, too. I really can't thank you enough, my dear, for the rescue. I'd have been walking all night in the muck if you hadn't happened upon me. Lucky, that." 

Anathema said nothing. As Aziraphale moved to exit the car, however, Anathema's hand moved to stop her. 

"Do you believe in providence, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale wrinkled her brow. "Like divine providence? The unseen hand of God, kind of thing?"

"If you like."

Aziraphale shifted in her seat, somewhat uncomfortably. "I suppose I must do, to some extent. It's a tempting thing to believe in. The guiding hand of a designed universe or a watchful deity. I can't say it's something I put much reliance on in the day-to-day. Why do you ask?"

Anathema's gaze fixed on her with that penetrating stare again. Then, her eyes broke away to land on the cross between them. "Because there's coincidence, and then there's providence. My grandmother once told me the only thing standing between a foolish person and a wise one was the ability to recognize the difference."

The feeling of slight unease that had been plaguing Aziraphale since she'd gotten in the car intensified, and she swallowed. "So you think we've been... drawn together, somehow? For what reason?"

"I don't know yet. But I intend to find out."

"W-well, then, that's good, I suppose. I'll just be off then, shall I?" The dark and empty cottage before her in the night was looking increasingly friendly with every passing moment.

"Before you do--" Aziraphale flinched slightly as Anathema leaned suddenly towards her, but she was only reaching over to get into the bag that Aziraphale hadn't quite noticed at her own feet. Anathema rustled around in it for a few moments before drawing back, a small velvet pouch in her hand. She handed it to Aziraphale. "Take this. For protection. Things aren't--you might need it."

A little confused, but desperate to get out of the car and into her new house, Aziraphale accepted the small pouch. "Er--thank you. I'll be seeing you around again, I'm sure?"

"Something tells me that's truer than you know," Anathema responded, simply.

As she watched the hearse disappear into the night again from the safety of her front doorstep, Aziraphale looked down at the pouch. She fiddled briefly with the strings and drew out a necklace, leather cord like the rosary in the hearse, with a small silver cross on the end.

Aziraphale looked back up towards the hearse in bewilderment, but its head lamps were no longer visible in the gloom.

\-------------------------

Aziraphale rubbed at her temples. She'd been sitting in front of a blank computer screen for the better part of the day, the unchanging grey light filtering in through the windows, and neither coffee nor time nor a certain amount of prayer she would never admit to later had done anything to make the blinking cursor move from its adamant position at the beginning of the document. She was nearly to the point of giving up. The only reason she'd persisted as long as she had was the deadline hanging over her head, the gratingly wheedling voice of her publisher that would no doubt appear on her phone to harangue her should she fail to get this chapter in on time. 

It was no use. After another five minutes, she heaved a great sigh and clicked out of the empty document, ignoring the feeling of slightly queasy dread sinking down in her stomach.

Her move out to the Scottish highlands had been a rather desperate attempt on her part to take out a new lease on life. The last few years and all the unpleasantness that had taken place had put a stranglehold on her mind, and both her heart and her books had suffered for it. Moving out to a nice secluded spot in the country--as far away from London and all its trappings as she could possibly go without actually leaving the Isles--had seemed like the thing to do at the time. An 'artist's retreat,' or something like that. Not that it seemed to be doing her much good. 

She shook herself a bit at that thought. The last three days since she'd arrived had been spent almost entirely in the occupation of unpacking or hunched over her computer screen, her meals hurried and lackluster. Hardly the atmosphere conducive to creative endeavors. She needed some fresh air, a proper meal, maybe even some kind of social interaction. Something to help her adjust to the new place. Something to help settle her mind. 

The only people she'd spoken to since she'd arrived had been Anathema and the shopkeeper at the little grocers in Killech, the one time she'd made the trip in after her car had been seen to. Her interaction with Anathema still niggled at her mind a bit. She felt strongly as though there had been more to the conversation than the woman had let on, odd gaps where Aziraphale had felt she was being withheld from. Anathema had been pleasant enough, if strange, but Aziraphale felt quite sure she wouldn't be seeking out her odd company again. Not that she'd given her a choice; all she'd left had been the cross necklace, which was still sitting rather uneasily on Aziraphale's kitchen table. No calling card, no number. 

Just the impression of being observed, of a looming and mysterious danger that Aziraphale hadn't quite managed to shake despite its rather fanciful nature. 

Aziraphale realized that she'd been staring at the necklace, utterly unseeing, while her kettle went off behind her. She shook herself again and turned her mind away from such intangible things. The map of the area she'd picked up was still untouched, but she spread it out now across her kitchen table, pushing aside the piles of books yet unshelved and the various other clutter, and looked carefully at the footpaths marked out in minute dotted lines. 

The persistent, sputtering rain that had plagued Aziraphale's arrival had faded into a familiar sort of mist after the first day, the heavy clouds seeming to cling to the craggy moorland as though it was tethered there. It stuck in wet droplets in Aziraphale's frizzy curls and on the surface of her sensible woolen skirt as she stepped out into the midday drizzle. 

At least there was light to see by this time. 

The map had indicated a walking trail not too far off, bisecting the slim margin of land that separated her property from the steep cliffs to the sea, and after some moments of wandering about near the cliff face, she managed to locate it. It was little more than a sheep path, a narrow parting of the salt-flecked grasses packed smooth. She followed it in the direction she knew the town to be.

The sea was harsh and cold that day, crashing up against the craggy stone below her as though it was trying to swallow it whole, though she supposed that was likely normal. The walking path followed the cliff’s edge for a little over half an hour, then veered off from it and off into the moorland. Aziraphale followed it, unhurried, enjoying the walk and the change of scenery it brought.

After a few more minutes of walking, a hulking grey silhouette became just visible through the clinging mist. It was on the sea side of the path, perched even more precariously over the churning waters than her own cottage, still grand even a fair distance from the path she stood on. It was a castle, or might have been called that. It had obviously been redone to become livable at some point in its history. Rather than a crumbled ruin of stone it stood proudly, weather-worn and perhaps not quite grand, but certainly usable. 

This was further evidenced by the fact that there was a light shining out from one of the windows.

Aziraphale stood looking at it a while, wondering who would willingly live in a drafty castle in the middle of nowhere, then remembered that her own cottage was likely not much better. She shrugged a little, just to herself, and moved on.

The walking path took her a little over an hour and a half at her sedate pace, and she was quite looking forward to sitting down in the warm by the time she got into Killech. It was a quiet little village. A single high street was lined by low stone buildings and fed onto smaller streets that were either cobbled or unpaved entirely, giving the whole place a rather old-fashioned feel. She had been in only once, the evening after she’d arrived, when she’d managed to get her car towed and fixed up. She’d driven in to the little grocer’s for milk and other essentials, but hadn’t lingered.

The place had been rather creepy at night.

Now, in the watery afternoon sunlight, it mostly just looked damp. There was no-one about, as she had expected. The only place that showed any sort of life was the pub, which was spilling muted music around the cracks of its heavy wooden door. 

Aziraphale moved towards it, drawn in by the promise of a warm meal and a dry place to rest.

The interior of the pub was about what one might expect from any small-town pub in Scotland. Ancient varnished wood made up nearly every surface, from the wide bar that cut its way across most of the floor space to the rickety little tables tucked along the walls to the front and sides. There were only a few patrons in at this time of day. A few older men were huddled near the front, peering out onto the quiet street with scowls. A young man was perched at the bar top, pattering away on a laptop that even Aziraphale recognized as being ancient in its own right, and behind the bar an older woman with dyed-red hair was idly polishing a glass.

The bartender looked up when Aziraphale paused at the door, and offered her a genuine smile. “Welcome in, love,” she said as Aziraphale shucked off her woolen coat, hanging it on a peg in the entryway. “I ‘aven’t seen you round ‘ere before.”

Aziraphale answered her sunny smile with a slightly more tenuous one. She crossed the rickety wooden floorboards and took a seat at the bar two seats down from the young man with the computer. “I’ve just moved in, actually. Er—Aziraphale.”

“Tracy,” the woman said, extending a hand over the bar to clasp Aziraphale’s in her own. “It’s always lovely to have a fresh face in a town like this one, I’ll tell you. We get so used to the same old tosh.”

“Excuse me.” It was the young man at the end of the bar, whose attention their little introduction seemed to have attracted. “Don’t mean to interrupt, but—did you say your name was Aziraphale?”

“Yes?” Aziraphale said, blinking. 

Tracy looked between the two of them, brows drawn together. “Do you and Newton here know each other?”

“Oh, no,” Newton clarified. He reached out a hand to shake Aziraphale’s as well. “I’m Newton Pulsifer. I think you met my girlfriend a couple of days ago?”

That made Aziraphale hesitate. This soft-spoken and mild-mannered young man looked about as far from any romantic interest she might have imagined for Anathema as it was possible to get. He was gentle in his manner and his speech, almost delicate, and Anathema was, well... She wouldn’t have used the term _delicate._ “I—did, yes. I suppose my fame preceded me.”

“That it did.” His smile was as soft as his voice, though less timid.

“Well, you’re making friends already,” Tracy said, approvingly. “Now, what can I get you, love? Something to warm you up a bit?”

“Yes, actually,” she decided. “Whiskey, if you please. Dalmore, if you have it, or your recommendation.”

Tracy gave her a click of the tongue and a look of mild approval. “No problems there. Anything to eat?”

Aziraphale ordered the fish and chips. She watched as Tracy disappeared behind a curtain, presumably into some sort of kitchen, then reappeared to pour Aziraphale her drink. 

Newton turned to her while she waited. “How have things been? Out at the cottage, I mean. I know Anathema was a little worried about you.”

“They’ve been fine,” Aziraphale assured him. She thought again of the silver necklace still sitting on her kitchen table. “I’ve had no trouble to speak of, apart from being abandoned by my muse. Certainly nothing…unusual.”

Newt nodded, seriously. 

“Are you an artist, then?” Tracy asked, putting down a generous pour of whiskey in front of her. “Couldn’t help but overhear about your muse.”

“You’re alright.” Aziraphale took a small sip of the whiskey and enjoyed the way it sent a wave of warmth all the way from her throat to her toes. She sighed, happily. “I’m an author, actually.” She tensed a little as she spoke the words. People sometimes reacted in strange ways when they found out what she did for a living.

“Oooh, really?” Tracy crooned, obviously interested. “Anything I’d have heard of?”

Aziraphale gave her a slightly self-deprecating smile. “Doubtful, I’m afraid. They’re mostly academic texts. Treatises on some more esoteric biblical lore and the like. Nothing terribly interesting.”

“Mostly?” Tracy gave her a sharp eye that made Aziraphale suspect she was much more perceptive than her rather ditzy persona projected.

“Mostly,” she agreed with a smile, but didn’t offer anything further.

She chatted amiably with Newton and Tracy through her meal, finding them both to be rather pleasant company overall. Newton, or “Newt,” as he insisted she call him, continued to be extremely mild mannered and gently disposed, and Aziraphale found herself spending her time trying to understand how he had ended up with someone like Anathema.

Some mysteries would never be solved, she supposed.

Tracy was nearly as much of an enigma. She laughed easily and chattered on without saying much, but every once in a while, Aziraphale would catch a glint of steel behind her eyes that said she was not someone to be underestimated. Talking to her felt more like a fencing match than a conversation, every word out of her own mouth an opportunity to tease more information out with a careful word or statement. Aziraphale rather enjoyed the sparring.

When the basket that had held her dinner contained nothing more than a grease-soaked napkin and her whiskey glass was empty, Aziraphale finally acknowledged that it was time to be turning back towards home. She bid Newt and Tracy goodbye, reluctantly dragging herself up out of the bar stool, then paused.

“Oh, I wanted to ask.” Aziraphale said, drawing Tracy’s attention back to her. “On my walk over, I passed an old castle that looked like it had someone living in it. Over by the cliffs. Do you know who owns it?”

Tracy and Newton shared a look that Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure how to interpret.

“That’s Miss Crowley’s place,” Tracy said. There was something about her tone that seemed uncertain, or perhaps uneasy. “You said it looked lived in?”

“I saw a light.” Aziraphale’s eyebrows came together, sensing the sudden tension. “Why, is that unusual?”

Tracy did a bad impression of someone who was telling the truth. “No, dear, not at all. She’s been away for a while, is all. It’s good to hear she’s back.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, and decided to leave it at that. “Well, thank you. For the meal and the company.”

“You’ll come back into town again soon, won’t you?” Tracy asked.

Aziraphale smiled at her. “I’m certain I will, my dear.” She put on her now mostly-dry coat and turned to slip back off into the damp early evening.

The sun was only barely starting to dip below the horizon as Aziraphale made her way along the now even muddier footpath leading back to the cottage. She slipped and slid up the slight incline, over craggy rocks and through the grassy valleys of the moors. Her pace was significantly faster than it had been on the way into Killech and she made good time despite the state of the path, but the light was still dwindling rapidly by the time she reached the landmark of the castle she had passed by earlier.

There were no lights on in the castle this time around, as far as Aziraphale could tell. The grey of the stone faded almost seamlessly into the rapidly darkening sky behind it, seeming right at home among the backdrop of the angry sea.

A tiny bit of movement caught Aziraphale’s eye. There was a figure standing off to the side of the castle, at the very edge of the cliff, where a little outcropping of stone jutted out a bit above the choppy waves below. It looked like it might have been a woman, but between the distance and the fading light, it was too difficult to make out any real details. Whoever it was was draped in black head to toe apart from a riot of crimson curls that were swirling around her head in the whipping wind from the sea. She was facing away from Aziraphale, towards the waves, gazing out at some point on the horizon. Other than the movement of her hair, she was completely and utterly still.

Aziraphale realized that she had been stopped for nearly a minute now, just watching the woman stand there by the cliffs. She chided herself for her rudeness and kept walking, watching the soles of her leather boots squelch and slide in the mud. 

When she had just crested the rise of the next hill, she couldn’t resist the urge to turn and look back.

The woman was gone.

A little shiver ran down Aziraphale’s spine despite her thick woolen coat. She wrapped it more tightly around herself and turned back to the path, wanting more than anything to get back to the warmth of her cottage.


	3. Shadows and Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale walks. Aziraphale dreams. The woman in black returns, but not how Aziraphale had been expecting...

It was easy to lose one’s self, living by the sea. 

Aziraphale found that all sense of time she might once have possessed stretched out into meaninglessness, the measured beating of the waves against the cliffs an unreliable marker of the minutes that seemed to flow by so easily. A little more than a week flew by with her barely cognizant of anything outside the little bubble of existence that was her cottage. 

She had taken to walking on the moors nearly every day, sometimes twice if the weather held. It did help with her writing, as she had hoped it would, though she suspected that it had more to do with getting a little healthy exercise and a change of scenery than a return of her wandering muse. The cliffs held something new for her to see every time she meandered along them. There was always some rocky outcropping or animal or other wonder of nature to capture her attention when she went out, something to distract and divert her. She only walked the path all the way into town one time, and then only to pick up some milk and tea from the little shop. Most often she went only as far as the castle before she turned around again.

She never did see the figure in black again. Whoever it was appeared to have vanished; there was no woman walking the moors, no lights in the windows. Nothing at all to indicate that what she had seen was anything more than a mirage. Or a fantasy. 

When she wasn’t walking to keep her mind off things, she was sat at her computer, or spending time with one of her books. She had kept the mobile she had been forced to acquire under some duress resolutely on silent. She didn’t want to hear from her family or any of her old acquaintances in London if they called. She also didn’t want to know if they hadn’t. The only person with whom she kept any really regular contact was her publisher, and that was only because it was a necessary evil. 

Besides, her publisher didn’t ask personal questions.

It was exactly how Aziraphale wanted things: quiet. She wanted to sit in her comfortable little kitchen and look out at the misty days without the disturbance of someone else inquiring after her every decision, commenting on her body and her choices and her time. She wanted peace.

She walked.

Not quite two weeks after she had moved into her little cottage by the sea, she found herself curled up on the little bench seat under the window in her sitting room. There was a book in her hand but her attention was outward, directed towards the steel-grey sea in the distance. The sun had poked its head out in little golden rays that day and they glinted off on individual wave crests, each one stretching itself upwards towards the sun as though it could touch Heaven and glowing with the effort, with its devotion, only to lose all momentum and plunge back down into the unforgiving waters below. Beyond them, the dark, rolling clouds told her that the sun wouldn’t be out for very long.

There was a knock on her door, startling her out of her little reverie. She carefully placed the bookmark back between the pages of her novel and bustled over to it, pulling her shawl more firmly around herself as she made her way down the narrow hallway. 

Anathema stood on her doorstep, along with young Newton. They both looked just the same as they had before; Anathema rough and steely-eyed, Newt soft and somewhat nervous.

“Hello, you two,” Aziraphale said, trying not to let her surprise show in her expression. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Anathema’s eyes were darting all around behind Aziraphale, though what she was looking for, Aziraphale didn’t know. Newt chimed in, “Evening, Aziraphale. We wanted to bring you a bit of a housewarming present, actually.” He shifted until the bundle in his arms became visible from around the back of Anathema. It was a domed glass cake plate, complete with what looked like a rather decadent chocolate cake, tied off with a little ribbon at the knob.

Aziraphale thought her eyebrows might escape off her face entirely at how quickly they were climbing towards her hairline. “That’s terribly thoughtful of you! Er—do come in. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Tea would be lovely, thanks,” Newt said, offering her a smile. Anathema, seemingly finished with her initial assessment of Aziraphale’s sitting room, also managed a smile as Aziraphale stepped aside to let them past her into the hall. 

“I apologize for the mess,” she said, leading them into the little kitchen. “I haven’t quite finished unpacking, you know. I know I should get around to it, but, well…” she made a vague sort of gesture.

“It’s no trouble,” Newt assured her. He and Anathema took a seat at the kitchen table at Aziraphale’s urging, watching her bustle about putting the kettle on. 

Anathema picked something up off the table, and it was only then Aziraphale remembered that the silver necklace she’d given her that first night was still there. “I see you still have this,” she said, quietly.

“Oh, yes, of course.” Aziraphale pulled three small plates down from one of her cabinets. “I haven’t had much—er—use for it, but it’s still there.”

Anathema put the necklace back down on the table. “Not needing it is good. I sincerely hope you never do.”

She sounded terribly serious. Aziraphale didn’t know quite what to say. She busied herself instead with pouring the tea and cutting the cake, which turned out to be quite delicious.

“I didn’t know if you were much of a baker,” Newt admitted, “but I figured if not, you could always give the tray away, or something. And it gave me an excuse to make something that I wouldn’t end up eating all of myself.”

Aziraphale chuckled dutifully along at that. She told him that she had dabbled only lightly in baking over the years, but that having a proper plate might be inspirational for her. “And maybe the occasional visitor, to share my creations with.” 

They chatted pleasantly for a while, or as pleasantly as was possible with three people who seemed equally determined not to talk about themselves too much. They talked about Killech and its surroundings. Things went a bit more smoothly when she discovered that Newt was an avid reader, and they were able to keep up a conversation about modern literature and its roots in classics for quite a while, though Anathema mostly just listened. She seemed perfectly content to do so. She sipped her tea and followed their conversation with apparent interest, so Aziraphale didn’t bother to prompt her to speak too often. 

When their teacups were all but empty and the conversation had run into a lull, Aziraphale cleared her throat. “Well,” she started, “this has been absolutely lovely, my dears, but I wouldn’t want to keep you all evening.”

Newt and Anathema shared a look. “There was one more thing we wanted to talk to you about, Aziraphale,” Anathema said, quietly. 

Aziraphale looked between them, feeling somewhat uneasy. “Oh?” she tried, “And what might that be?”

“Do you know who lived in this cottage before you?” Anathema’s brown eyes were wide, piercing.

“Er—I’m afraid I don’t,” Aziraphale said. She fiddled with the handle of her tea cup just for something to do. “Why, should I?”

Anathema shook her head. “I’m not surprised. It didn’t make much more than the local news.”

“What didn’t?” 

Another look between Newt and Anathema. This time it was Newt who said, slowly, “There was a man. Gabriel Cielo. About three months before you moved in, he…disappeared.”

Silence reigned between them for a few moments. “Alright,” Aziraphale said, somewhat confused. “I’ll admit that’s somewhat odd, but it’s not exactly unprecedented. People decide to move on and leave without telling anyone, or get lost while they’re out in the woods somewhere. It happens.”

“His front door was unlocked.” Anathema had the silver cross in her hand again, and was rubbing her thumb over the surface almost rhythmically. “All his lights were on. The dishes from his dinner were in the sink, a half-drunk cup of tea by his favorite reading chair. He was just _gone_.” 

Aziraphale’s breathing picked up, just a bit. “That’s—okay, well, that’s _very_ odd then. But I still don’t know what it has to do with me.”

“I don’t know that it does, necessarily,” Anathema admitted, “but I’m worried that it might. That you might need this,” she held up the necklace, the cross glinting in the light at the end of its silver chain, “when you’re out on one of your little walks.”

Aziraphale blinked. “How did you know I’d been walking?” 

Anathema opened her mouth, closed it again.

“I told her,” Newt said, hurriedly. “You walked to the pub that one time with Tracy and I. I figured it probably wasn’t the only time you’d be at it.”

He was _not_ a good liar. 

“Right.” Aziraphale stood up. “Well, thank you ever so much for your concern, but I really must be getting on with my work now. Deadlines to meet, that kind of thing. Thank you ever so much for the cake and the stand, it was quite thoughtful of you.” She was being a bit rude, she knew, but in that moment she wanted little more in the world than to be alone again.

Newt seemed as though he were about to say something, but a hand from Anathema stopped him. “We’ll get out of your hair,” she said, gravely, “But _please_. Take this, and wear it.” She pressed the silver cross into Aziraphale’s rather reluctant grip. “I know it doesn’t make sense right now, but just…do it for me. Please.”

Aziraphale looked down at the thing, then up into Anathema’s pleading eyes. Whatever secrets she was keeping from Aziraphale, whatever else there was behind the request, this much Aziraphale knew was sincere. There was no mistaking the naked fear lurking in Anathema’s eyes.

“Why do you care so much about me?” Aziraphale asked, almost without thinking. “Who am I that you’re so afraid I’ll go missing?” She took the cross from Anathema’s hand and slipped it over her neck.

Anathema offered her a real smile, then. “I told you.” She fumbled at her own throat, reaching for something beneath the buttons and fabric there. She pulled out the rosary that had been dangling in her car, the one with wooden beads and Aziraphale’s namesake carved into the silver. “I don’t believe in coincidence.”

\-------------------

Aziraphale awoke with a scream climbing its way out of her throat.

She stared at the ceiling for a moment, panting, wide eyes not comprehending its unbroken expanse for a good several seconds. The alarm clock on the side table told her it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. She fell back to the sheets from where she had propped herself up slightly and ground the heel of her palms against her eyes, trying to scrub the afterimages of her nightmare away.

Aziraphale sighed, and rolled over to turn on the lamp in her room. Her insomnia had haunted her until well after midnight, leaving her to toss and turn and fight to relax under the weight of bad memories and strangely threatening conversations, but she knew there was no use in going back under now. The dream would only follow her down.

Aziraphale had hoped that coming out here, as far away from London as it was possible to be, would change her, somehow. That it would take the burden of the last thirty-odd years of her life off her shoulders. She had hoped that distance from her family would make them fade away into the aether, never to haunt her doorstep or her dreams again.

Apparently, she had been wrong. Somehow she could still feel their eyes on her, even here. Their familiar gazes that judged her and dismissed her, and yet were still _hungry_ , willing and able to take everything she was willing to give and more, more, until she had nothing left.

Until she was nothing but bones.

Shivering against the wet chill in the air, Aziraphale swung her legs off the side of the bed. She hissed in surprise as her feet hit the cold wooden slats of the floor and danced her way over to the wardrobe, feeling ridiculous, the hem of her night dress swirling around her. 

Once she had put on some warm woolen socks, she stopped. The weather had taken a turn for the worse that night. A cold wind had swept up off the sea and brought with it an icy rain to suit the mid-autumn season, soaking the moors and anyone out in them to the bone. Still, Aziraphale could see the glint of pale moonlight against the falling curtain through her window, and found that it called to her. It would be foolhardy to go out on a night like tonight. Her mother would have told her she was going to catch her death of cold.

She threw on her warmest trousers and several layers of shirts, and grabbed her thickest coat on the way out the door.

The ground moved and squelched under Aziraphale’s boots as she stomped around her house towards the water. The moonlight was indeed brilliant, despite the rain, shining off the surface of the water beneath the cliffs and the droplets that disturbed every inch until the place where sky ended and sea began started to blend together. Aziraphale watched it for a while. She had always wanted to live near the sea; not the fake beachy nonsense you saw on the sides of buses and in American films. The real kind. The kind with teeth. 

She took a deep breath, taking the wet air into her lungs with relish. She wasn’t sure what it was about the chaos that set her mind at ease more than anything else. Perhaps it was the inevitability of it—she could no more calm the seas than she could turn water into wine, and no-one would ever expect such a feat of her. 

Out here, in the rain, on the precipice, she was free. 

Aziraphale felt the urge to move and so turned down the now-familiar pathway that led into the village, ignoring the way the cold rain was soaking through to her skin. It made deep shivers wrack through her body. Still, she tucked her hands beneath the meagre shelter of her coat, hugging her arms close to herself as she soldiered on, letting her laboured breaths cover the small anxious sobs still chasing her from her dreams.

The path was difficult to see in the dark and the rain, moonlight or no. Rain water followed the low-lying areas within the moors until little rivulets flowed anywhere and everywhere across the moors, both masking the actual path with false friends and making much of the right way completely impossible to navigate.

Still, Aziraphale was not to be swayed. The only peace she would find tonight was around the next hill (always the next hill) and in the soles of her own feet; the cold and wet soaking into the very bones of her was a trifle in comparison to the tumult within.

After a while, some minutes or perhaps hours, something more than the cold began to creep down Aziraphale’s spine. It was a sense, an awareness, a knowledge of something nearby. She stopped, turned. Her field of vision was extremely limited by the rain and the poor light but still she knew there was something out there, just out of sight.

Lurking.

Aziraphale stepped backwards once, again. She turned in the direction she had come—thought she had come, it was so difficult to tell—and took a few hasty steps in that direction, cursing her cold-leaden feet and the way they slid stiffly in the mud beneath her. 

There was a whistle, somewhere in front of her. It was a low, almost animal sound, and could have been mistaken for some far-away bird, had it not been the dead of night. As it was, it made Aziraphale’s blood freeze in her veins. She turned again, away from the whistle, though whether she was back on her original course again or not, she couldn’t tell. The path that had been obscured before was utterly nonexistent in the face of her growing panic. Tears began to well up in her eyes as another whistle rang out from behind her, closer this time, turning the world into a blur of black and silver and motion.

She was running now, or as near to it as she could manage right then. Her harsh breathing echoed loudly in her ears over the rain. Every muscle in her body was screaming at her to stop, to breathe, but she knew that whatever it was in the dark was still there. 

She knew, somehow, that once it caught her, it would be the end. 

One of her feet caught against a stony outcropping and she cried out, more in surprise and fear than in pain. She hastily lifted the other foot up and over the low barrier, putting it down again on the other side. 

Or she would have, if there had been another side.

Aziraphale didn’t even have time to scream as all her weight was flung over the side of the cliff, the momentum of her lurching run carrying the rest of her with no chance of stopping it. Her mouth parted in a small “o” as she suddenly saw the sea below her, a dizzying drop away, nearly horizontal to her.

There was a sharp, tugging pain in her wrist, and the vision of the sea was yanked suddenly away again as she was returned to the precipice by someone behind her.

The laws of physics could not be denied. She crashed backwards into her rescuer, nearly knocking them over, too, but the stabilizing hands at her wrist and waist finally won out and she was able to look up into the face of the person who had saved her life, into her eyes.

Her bright, glowing, yellow eyes.

She stayed conscious just long enough to see the woman’s lips move, perhaps asking her a question, but the all-consuming blackness had washed over her long before she could hear the words.

\----------------

Aziraphale dreamed.

She dreamed she was still running on the moors, shapeless monsters of black shadow and glowing yellow eyes nipping at her heels, their razor-sharp claws catching at her drenched clothing but never quite managing to halt her frantic progress. In her dream, she was somehow still shivering from the relentless cold of the rain and also too hot, _burning_ , the shadows haunting her steps, beasts of fire come to consume her from the inside out. Their wordless, howling cries froze and fueled her. She ran and ran and ran, constantly on the edge of collapsing in fear and exhaustion and pain, all thoughts drowned out by the echoing sound of her own heartbeat.

Ahead of her on the moors, Dream Aziraphale could see a figure in black robes. She was turned away, facing out across the moors to some unseen horizon, red curls blowing violently in the maelstrom around her. Aziraphale ran towards her. She cried out, not really sure why she was doing so, reaching towards the figure with her hand outstretched. 

The figure turned towards her then. Her features were soft, indistinct; a face Aziraphale had only seen in profile and from a very long distance away. Even in the dream, Aziraphale almost halted. The woman had the same eyes as the beasts around her. They glowed faintly in the dark, and when they found Aziraphale’s gaze they struck her with a wave of emotion so strong she could barely breathe for a moment.

They were _terrified_.

Aziraphale felt a wash of heat nearly overwhelm her, the shadowy beasts chasing her through the sodden dream scape finally beginning to overtake her as she ran. She reached out again towards the woman, mouth open in something like a scream, Any sound that she did manage to make was lost in the roar of the rain and the shapeless beasts and the howling, unseen ocean, somewhere off in the distance. 

The woman reached back towards her, her pale hand almost glistening in the gloom, stretching out to meet Aziraphale as she struggled forward.

Aziraphale reached the woman at last. She clutched at her tightly, her own shaking fingers wrapping around the woman’s, cold as marble. She tugged at the woman, trying to get her to run, to move, but she remained as still as a statue under Aziraphale’s hands. The woman tried to say something, her mouth moving, but Aziraphale couldn’t hear the words.

The scant few seconds was enough. The warmth grew more and more intense, the shadow creatures with their eyes just like the woman’s drew in around them, trapping them both, burning Aziraphale with their unrelenting fire. She felt sharp claws pierce at her sides, her shoulders, pulling her back, making Aziraphale scream silently again. They pierced into the woman as well, but she seemed almost not to notice; her eyes were on Aziraphale, wide and glowing and afraid. 

The grip they had on each other was tight, but it wasn’t enough. The beasts’ strength was too much to resist. Aziraphale cried out one last time as her fingers began to slip out of the woman’s hand, grip loosened with pain and the unceasing tugging of the creatures behind her, wrenching her away. 

The last thing she saw before she fell back into the searing, swallowing darkness was the woman in black’s wide, fearful eyes.

——————

Aziraphale awoke with a start. She had a dizzying moment of deja vu as she sat up sharply in the bed, mind spinning and eyes barely managing to take in her surroundings for a few moments. Her nightmare still haunted her, the curling blackness at the edges of her mind pulling at her consciousness, making it hard to breathe.

The first thing that she really registered was how warm she was. Enough sheets, duvets, and quilts for a small army had been layered on top of her, and the roaring fire on one wall meant that the whole room was sweltering. 

The next thing she registered was the fact that this was not her bedroom, nor her house at all. The walls were an unfamiliar stone cut through with wide oaken beams that carried through to the floor of the room above. It was large, far larger than the bedroom at her cottage, and well-appointed; the bed she was laid out in was as soft as any Aziraphale had ever encountered, and the intricately carved wooden headboard would have been worth a small fortune in its own right. The shutters over the windows were shut tight, trapping the heat even more, and through them she could hear the storm still raging outside.

Aziraphale took a few moments to just get her bearings about her. The racing of her heart was slowing with every moment that passed, the last of her nightmare slipping away through the cracks as the light of reality shone in. 

Slowly, mindful of the way the world was still spinning softly around her, Aziraphale pushed back the covers and maneuvered herself until she was sitting at the edge of the bed. Whoever had brought her here had relieved her of her coat and over shirt, it seemed, but had left her undershirt and trousers behind, for which she was grateful. She didn’t see any clothes lying around anywhere, nor any sort of wardrobe, and she certainly didn’t fancy making her way through a stranger’s home without a stitch on her. Not even if it was all as swelteringly warm as it was here.

Her clothes were still slightly damp from the deluge they had been out in earlier, though the sheets and the heat had taken off the worst of it. Her feet were bare. They were nearly silent on the scattered carpets and bare oak boards as she padded her way across the floor towards the door. She reached out to pull at the handle, then hesitated. 

She knew exactly where she was, even if her memory was a little fuzzy about how she had gotten there. She had been headed towards the old castle down the footpath from her cottage when she had set out so foolishly. Even though she had gotten terribly turned around in her blind panic, there was no-where else around for her to be, not for miles.

Aziraphale thought about the figure she had seen standing on the cliffs, the woman in her nightmare. She thought of glowing yellow eyes, and of the fear she had seen there. Had she imagined that fear? Had she added it to her dream from nowhere, or had she actually seen it in those yellow eyes in the split-second before she had lost consciousness? For that matter, had the eyes actually been yellow, or was that the nightmare invading her memories and mixing her all about? She could no longer tell. It was all too jumbled up in her mind, too close to hand.memory, too close to hand.

She turned the knob.

The door swung open into an empty stone hallway. It looked ancient, though someone had made some effort to modernize at some point; the lit sconces on the wall were electric, for all that their warm, dim light tried to mimic that of a natural fire. For a few moments Aziraphale stood just within the door frame, unsure exactly what to do. The stone outside the pocket of warmth that was the bedroom was ice cold and uncarpeted, and she hissed as the cold sent shockwaves from the soles of her feet all the way through her body. 

Down the hallway, a few doors down from where she stood, another door stood open. The flickering light of what was likely another fire spilled out from it and into the hallway. Aziraphale braced herself and took a few steps in its direction, wincing at the cold and the way she still felt less than entirely steady on her feet.

Aziraphale made it to the door as silently as she possibly could, using a hand against the wall for support, and peered into the room.

It appeared to be some sort of office. It was cold and rather stark, most of it taken up by a wide desk with a high-backed chair that looked almost throne-like behind it. There was indeed a fire burning against one wall, in front of which a rack with what looked like the rest of Aziraphale’s clothes on it had been assembled. 

The woman in black was also in the room. Aziraphale hadn’t gotten a good look at her out in the rain, but from the fact that the tight black dress she wore seemed dry, Aziraphale assumed she had changed clothes. She was around Aziraphale’s age, perhaps a bit younger, with sharp features and an impossibly thin frame. She was pacing restlessly, striding across the floor on long legs until she hit a wall and had to turn around, then pacing back the way she had come. Her face was tight and drawn. Aziraphale couldn’t see her eyes, because they were hidden behind thick, covering sunglasses. Aziraphale felt her pulse pick up again, the memory of those eyes coming back to her.

She must have made some kind of noise, because the woman stopped her pacing, turning towards where Aziraphale stood at the doorway. She froze.

The two of them stood there for a few moments, locked in place. The woman seemed neither upset at Aziraphale’s appearance nor particularly happy that she was up and about, but rather seemed to be warring with herself over something. Aziraphale wanted to say something, to introduce herself, but felt paralyzed by the yellow eyes that may or may not have lain beneath those obscuring sunglasses.

Aziraphale got over her hesitation first. “Er, hello,” she said, somewhat lamely. “Sorry to disturb your…sorry to disturb you. Is—is this—” she trailed off, realizing that ‘is this your castle’ would seem a bit silly in the circumstances. “I’m Aziraphale. Aziraphale Fell.” She finally managed.

The woman in black stayed frozen for a few more seconds, then seemed to purposefully relax. She nodded. “Crowley.” She shifted slightly from one foot to another, obviously a bit uncomfortable. Her voice was soft, much softer and lower than Aziraphale had been expecting, the gentle Scottish accent making it almost lilting. It put Aziraphale almost immediately at ease. At the very least, this soft-spoken and slightly awkward woman didn’t appear to be about to harm her.“Antonia if you have to, but just Crowley is fine. I’m glad to see you’re awake.”

“Lovely to meet you, Crowley. And thank you. I assume you had something to do with that?” Aziraphale tried to offer her a smile, though she was afraid it came off somewhat awkward. 

Crowley just nodded again, looking down at Aziraphale’s still-damp clothes and bare feet. “Do you drink tea?” 

Aziraphale blinked. “Was it the accent that gave it away?” she tried, earning a small flick of a smile from Crowley that was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. 

“Sit down by the fire there, let me grab you some tea and some dry clothes. You look like you need it.”

Aziraphale hesitated. “Are you sure? I feel as though I should be getting out of your hair.” 

As if on cue, there was a flash of lightning from the window followed by a monstrously loud peal of thunder, startling the both of them where they stood. The rain seemed to intensify even further, the wind picking up from its already intense state and slamming itself against the stone walls and windows of the castle with force for a few moments. 

Crowley, who had turned towards the window at the flash of light, raised an eyebrow at Aziraphale. “I think it might be better if you stayed a while, Miss Fell. Safer.” 

“J-just Aziraphale.” Aziraphale realized she was gripping herself around the middle, having taken a defensive step back against the loud noise of the thunder. “And I—I think you might be right, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble.” Crowley looked around the room, oddly intense, as though she expected some sort of threat to appear. “Stay here, by the fire. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Aziraphale felt as though she should argue, and she really didn’t want to be left alone in this strange place, but a jolt of pain from her half-frozen foot decided her. She gave a weak nod and hobbled over to one of the armchairs nearest the fire, moving the rack with her clothes out of the way to get them a little closer to the hearth. She sensed Crowley hesitate for a few moments behind her, watching Aziraphale settle in, then left the room, closing the door behind her.

By the time she returned a few minutes later with tea and a change of clothes, Aziraphale was about ready to crawl out of her skin. The hush of the room, broken only by the patter of rain and the crackling of the fire, was horribly disquieting to her. She kept feeling a nearly overwhelming urge to spin around and check behind her, as though the curling shadows created by the fire might reach out to grab at her after all. 

She gave a sigh of relief when Crowley came back in through the door, tea and biscuits on a tray and a bundle of soft-looking clothing under one arm, and accepted a cup of tea with a grateful sigh.

“I didn’t have any milk,” Crowley said apologetically, setting the tray on a table, “so it’s only sugar, I’m afraid.”

Aziraphale took a deep, fortifying sip, taking more comfort than she’d care to admit in the warmth and sweetness of a lifelong ritual. “It’s perfect,” she said, honestly, which made Crowley really smile.

Crowley hadn’t had much in Aziraphale’s size, but she had brought an old and rather careworn woolen jumper and a skirt that wrapped around for an adjusted fit, both in black. She left Aziraphale briefly to let her change into them, then settled into a chair on the opposite side of the fire with some obvious trepidation. 

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them for a while. Crowley mostly stared into the fire, hardly blinking. Or, that was what she did when she thought Aziraphale wasn’t looking; Aziraphale caught her out of the corner of her eye a few times, staring right at her.

Eventually, the silence became too much. Aziraphale said, “Do you know, I had the strangest dream before I woke up here.”

Crowley turned towards her, apparently unaffected. “Did you.”

“It was relatively similar to what happened earlier—I was processing it all, I expect—except that I—well.” She trailed off.

Crowley tilted her head. “Except that what?”

“Well,” Aziraphale went on, cheeks colouring in mild embarrassment, “except that there were monsters chasing me. Real ones, I mean, not ones out of my imagination.” 

Crowley said nothing. 

Aziraphale, losing steam somewhat but refusing to be deterred, said, “And, well—you were there. Just like earlier. Only your eyes were…yellow. And glowing.” She left out the part about their grasping hands, about the wrenching pain she had felt as she had been ripped away from this woman she had barely met, about the fear that chased her into her waking hours. 

Crowley turned back to the fire. She was silent for a few moments and Aziraphale rather thought the one-sided conversation had come to its end, but after a little while, Crowley said, “It might be best for you to stop your little nighttime jaunts about the cliffs, Miss Fell.”

Aziraphale frowned, surprised. “Why’s that?”

“Not all monsters are in your head,” she said, simply.

Aziraphale stared at her for a moment. “W-what do you mean by that?”

Crowley finally looked back at her, eyes hidden by her sunglasses, but the intensity of her gaze evident anyway. “Nothing,” she said after a pause that was just a little too long. “There’s wolves in these parts, is all. Not to mention the cliffs. You’ve got to be more careful.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale chuckled a little, nervously. “Well, I suppose I should say thank you for rescuing me, again. From the wolves and the fall.”

Crowley’s gaze was fixed wholly and utterly on her now, laser-focused on Aziraphale. Her voice was carefully neutral, but Aziraphale could sense a bit of unease and quite a lot of honesty when she said, “Believe me, Aziraphale. You have absolutely nothing to thank me for.”

Aziraphale didn’t know quite what to say to that. She nodded and turned back to look into the fire instead, swallowing against the sudden lump of cold unease in her throat.


	4. On the Nature of Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More conversations with the residents of Killech only seem to give Aziraphale more questions than answers. A visit to Crowley's castle in the light of day yields more than she could have ever anticipated...or wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs for this chapter: very vague implications of animal death (sheep)

The cross felt strange against Aziraphale’s skin.

There wasn’t anything actually wrong with it, of course. It was just a piece of simple silver at the end of a deceptively sturdy chain. It didn’t make some sort of protective shield spring up around her, nor did a bolt of lightning come down from the sky to strike her down.

Still, it felt…off somehow. Heavy. Aziraphale was excruciatingly aware of it being there, pressing against her, weighing her down. She wore it anyway. After the things she had felt in the dark and the rain on the moors that night, no matter how often she told herself it had all been some kind of delusion, even such a paltry protection was enough to offer some kind of solace. 

Aziraphale steered her rather beat-up old car off the narrow motorway and onto the so-called high street of Killech. There were few people about, as there had been the scant number of times Aziraphale had visited before, only a few unfamiliar faces making their leisurely ways about the shops and houses that lined the main road. Aziraphale turned again and parked her rather beat-up old car in the lot behind the cobbler’s. 

She had come into town for a bit of a stock-up; with nighttime walks off the table for dealing with her anxious tendencies, she had taken to seeking solace in late-night cups of tea and packets of ginger crisps. They didn’t quiet her racing thoughts or calm her restless spirit, but they were something to do, and she had gone through a rather worrying volume of the both of them over the past few days. 

As she made her way over to the little grocer’s, though, her feet paused beneath her. The pub was just across the street. It sat quietly among similarly sized wood and stone buildings on either side of it, unobtrusive among the cobbles. The lights inside were dim, and no music spilled onto the street from within, still too early in the day to attract any kind of a lively crowd.

Aziraphale hesitated for a moment, then turned her feet more firmly towards the tavern. She told herself it was a good excuse to get out of the house for a while. This wasn’t exactly untrue; there were only so many places to go for entertainment and companionship in a town as small and insulated as Killech. The nearest settlement of any note was hours away, even by car. Still, she would be lying if she claimed to not have any other motive for going into the little pub.

Tracy looked up at the little bell that heralded her entrance. “Oh, miss Aziraphale!” she exclaimed brightly, placing a bookmark in what looked suspiciously like a racy novel and standing up from her place behind the bar. “How are you today, lovey?”

“Quite well, thank you.” Aziraphale took a quick look around as she put her coat on the peg by the door. There was a youngish, pale woman at one of the seats by the window at the front who was utterly absorbed in something on one of those electronic tablet things that had become all the rage in recent years, but the place was otherwise deserted besides her and Tracy. 

“That’s good,” Tracy went on, watching Aziraphale putter over to the bar. “It’s been a few days since we’ve seen you around here. I was starting to get a bit worried about you, but Newt said he’d seen you recently, and that you seemed to be getting on alright. Which you are, obviously. Don’t mind me, love, but I do worry.”

Aziraphale smiled at her, honestly. “I didn’t mean to worry you, my dear. I get a bit absorbed in my writing work and forget that the outside world exists sometimes.”

“Not to worry, love,” Tracy said, waving any lingering doubt away with a vague hand. She reached up and pulled the bottle of Dalmore off the shelf, then started to pour it into two short glasses. “Like I said, I worry over nothing sometimes. You being up at that cottage all alone doesn’t help.”

“It doesn’t help much with my peace of mind much either,” Aziraphale admitted, taking the unasked-for glass of whiskey with a grateful smile. 

They chatted for a bit, the both of them sipping their whiskey as they traded more pleasantries and as Tracy caught her up on the sordid details of the lives of people Aziraphale had never met. She ordered something to eat and picked at it a little listlessly, trying to work up the courage to ask about what she was really here for.

“Are you alright, love?” Tracy asked her, softly, after Aziraphale failed to be properly scandalized by an affair that had been caught on camera several towns away to the north. “Only you seem a bit distracted. And you’ve barely touched your chips.”

“Have I?” Aziraphale blinked down at her plate, which was indeed still nearly full. She sighed. 

Tracy gave her a searching sort of look. She seemed to make a decision and made her way out from behind the bar entirely, settling down onto the stool next to Aziraphale’s so she could speak in a low voice. “What’s the matter, love, actually? I know a troubled soul when I see one, I should think.”

Aziraphale fiddled with the edge of a napkin, absently. “Tracy, I…I was hoping you might answer some questions for me, actually.”

Tracy raised an eyebrow at her, surprised. “Well of course, dear. I’m always happy to help out if I can, rare as that may be. What’s this about?”

“There’s nothing wrong, exactly,” Aziraphale started, a little haltingly. “I was wondering what you might be able to tell me about…about Mrs. Crowley, up at the castle, actually.”

Tracy’s other eyebrow went up. “What d’you want to know about our Crowley? And it’s just ‘miss,’ dear, not ‘mrs.’ It’s only ever been her up there, long as I’ve known her.”

Aziraphale nodded, deciding to tuck away the little stirring of something in her chest that those words elicited for later perusal. Much later. “How long have you known her? That seems as good a place as any to start.”

“Oh, seems like forever,” Tracy said, airily, swirling her whiskey around idly in its glass. 

“So she’s lived here her whole life?” Aziraphale watched Tracy closely, and with interest. “I mean, she’s got the accent. But has she always lived in that castle?”

Tracy tipped her head to the side, thoughtfully. “Not always, no. She—her family came here when I was a girl. Her mother was a dear friend to me. Very like her, you know. I was a poor little thing with not much in the world to speak of, and she was very kind to me. I would have done anything for her.”

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said. “I’m assuming she’s no longer with us?”

Tracy gave her a soft, brief smile. “Not for many years, yet, no. Though Crowley has been a good friend to me as well.”

“Yes, she told me.” Aziraphale shivered a little at the memory of Crowley’s soft voice, barely audible over the flickering of the fire.

“You spoke to her?” Tracy didn’t try to hide her shock. “When was this?”

Aziraphale hesitated for a moment, considering. On the one hand, her instincts were telling her to keep the events of that night close to her chest, for her own pride if nothing else. Wandering off a cliff in the dark was hardly a tale that was going to cast any kind of good light on herself. Then again, despite her obvious penchant for hoarding secrets like a dragon, Tracy did seem to genuinely care about both herself and about Crowley. She wasn’t sure who else she might have the opportunity to talk to about such things if not her.

Tracy waited patiently as Aziraphale warred with herself, eyes surprisingly understanding. 

Finally, Aziraphale came to a decision. “It was a…rather silly affair,” Aziraphale admitted. She told Tracy about her ill-fated walk, keeping the story more or less intact although she did omit the bit about hallucinating that Crowley had yellow eyes, and the nightmare that had followed.

Some things were simply too ridiculous to tell.

Tracy listened to Aziraphale with an intensity that was almost unnerving. She made a good audience, too; she gasped and clutched at her heart when Crowley caught her from tumbling over the cliff, she sighed when Aziraphale lost consciousness in Crowley’s arms. She even tutted at the idea of her walking about the castle in her bare feet.

“And she walked you back to your cottage, just like that?” Tracy asked when Aziraphale had finished.

Aziraphale nodded, taking a sip of her whiskey. “She did. Walked me right up to the door. And I was glad of it, too. My nerves were quite shot at that point.”

“I can imagine.” Tracy looked thoughtful again, for a moment. “You know, I haven’t known Crowley to take to strangers much. She barely takes to me, most times, and I’m the closest thing she has to a friend.”

“I’m…not sure you could say she took to me,” Aziraphale said, somewhat awkwardly. “I mean, I had just literally fallen into her lap. Perhaps she thought it would have been rude to just leave me there.”

Tracy shook her head, sharply. “That’s not what I mean. She’s certainly the type to go play the hero over poor lost lambs—literally, I mean, that wasn’t a dig at you—but she’s not generally…you know, nice. Pleasant. I know you may not think that was her being particularly pleasant, but believe me, it was. A forest fire, that one is. Look, but don’t touch.”

Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so she took a long draught of her whiskey instead, the burn of it down her throat grounding. The image of her delusion swam before her vision again; Crowley with bright yellow, glowing eyes, saying something that was all but swallowed by the storm raging around her. She thought about the figure she had first seen standing by the cliffs, swirling red hair and black clothes, looking like some kind of wraith, and who had disappeared from view like a shadow. She thought about her hand, reaching out to her in the darkness of her dream, screaming as Aziraphale was ripped away…

“Some people just have a rather prickly exterior,” Aziraphale said, with somewhat less conviction than she had intended.

Tracy just hummed, noncommittally.

They spoke for a while longer, but Aziraphale learned little more about Crowley than she had already known. Tracy carefully dodged questions or gave very vague answers, or even claimed not to know the answers despite being Crowley’s so-called closest friend. She supposed it was because Crowley was obviously such a private person, which Aziraphale understood even if it was frustrating to her. She did learn that Crowley made her living as some sort of art dealer, and that she drove a classic car that she loved more than any human as far as Tracy had ever been able to tell, including herself. She also learned that she had been in Killech most of her life, but that she had never really been a part of the local community. She had simply lived in the castle, leaving for long periods of time to travel for work, and avoided coming to town whenever possible.

By the time she left Tracy and the pub behind, she felt that she had more questions than answers. 

The early afternoon had worn on with rather alarming speed, and Aziraphale realized with a sick jolt that the sun was already beginning to dip low on the horizon. She hurried across the cobbled lane towards the shop. 

Killech’s grocery was small but stuffed full. It was packed with tall shelves bearing food, supplies, medicines, and other items that might be useful to a household out in the middle of the unforgiving Scottish highlands. The proprietor was a rather curious older man named Shadwell. Aziraphale had met him on her first run into town and had found him to be grumpy but manageable, as long as she avoided any particularly dodgy topics such as politics, literature, food supply chains, and really most other things. Aziraphale had learned quickly to try and get in and out as quickly as she possibly could. 

“Afternoon, Sergent Shadwell,” Aziraphale said carefully, bringing her hastily-grabbed items up to the checkout. 

He grunted back at her, still absorbed in his paper. “Can you believe this shite?” 

“Er, no,” Aziraphale tried, pushing her things closer to him across the counter as subtly as she could. “Just this, please.”

He didn’t seem to have noticed the little motion. “They try an’ bring this shite back every couple o’ years, now, an’ it’s always just as much nonsense. Did you know, Fell,” he crumpled the paper slightly in his lap as he turned to peer at her, still incensed over whatever he was rambling on about, “that there ‘asn’t been a wolf in these parts since they got the last of ‘em in 1680. 1680! An’ now they’re tryin’ to bring ‘em back. ‘Conservational reintroduction,’ bah!” He turned back to his paper angrily.

Aziraphale blinked, her heart thudding a bit strangely in her ears. “No wolves? None at all?”

“‘Course not,” he went on gruffly. It seemed to finally sink in that she was in fact a customer there to make a purchase, as he folded up the paper and started to plug numbers into a calculator that was older than she was. “There’s nothin’ but sheep and shepherds ‘round here, and there ‘asn’t been for ages. You think they’d just let wolves run around, killin’ people’s flocks?”

“N-no,” Aziraphale said. “No, of course not. That would be silly, I suppose.”

He huffed, peering down at his ancient machine. “Not that it helps completely, mind.”

She frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s been almost a dozen sheep lost ‘round here in the last couple ‘o years, and it ain’t wolves what’s been doin’ it.” 

Aziraphale’s heart felt as though it were about to beat out of her chest, but she tried to keep her voice steady. “What’s causing it then, do you think?”

He looked up at her for the first time in the whole interaction, actually taking in the way she was hanging on his words. “Well,” he said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “do you want my opinion, lassie?”

“I do,” she whispered back, swaying towards him as well despite the store being entirely empty apart from the two of them. 

“If you ask me,” his voice was barely audible at this point, even in the hush of the store, “it’s witches what’s been taking ‘em.”

Aziraphale blinked, again. “Witches?”

“Ssshh!” Shadwell hushed her, looking around the empty shelves. “Yes, lassie, witches. Takin’ people’s sheep for their wicked blood rituals, bringin’ down devils an’ monsters down on all our heads.”

“Monsters?” Something in Aziraphale’s stomach squirmed. 

“Aye. Demons an’ vampires and werewolves an’ the like.” Shadwell seemed to be getting into his tale now, growing more animated as Aziraphale showed all the signs of actually taking him seriously. “Brought here by wicked women what have been truckin’ wit’ the Devil.”

Aziraphale mulled this over as Shadwell finished up her bill, handing over the required notes without really seeing them.

As she was heading towards the door, leaving him to turn back to his paper, she paused. “Sergeant?” 

“Hmm?” he said, already distracted. 

“These witches. What do they…what do they look like?” She felt ridiculous asking, but that niggling in her stomach that had been there for days wouldn’t let her leave the subject alone.

He seemed surprised that she had asked. “Well, they can look like anyone, can’t they?” He said. “But you listen here and you listen good.” He leaned forward again, conspiratorially, despite the fact that she was on the opposite side of the room from her. “If you ever suspect you’ve got a witch on your hands, count the nipples. Gives ‘em away ev’ry time.”

Aziraphale exhaled, slowly, chiding herself for letting her thoughts run rampant. There was a reasonable explanation for what had happened to her, and monsters and witches wasn’t it. She would get to the bottom of it, whatever it was, but not at the whims of the likes of Shadwell. 

“Thank you, Sergeant,” she said, evenly, and turned back out to the street with her shopping in hand.

\---------------

Autumn was beginning to set in in earnest. 

Aziraphale pulled her woolen shawl tighter around herself with her free hand, balancing the glass cake tray in the other. It was early still, hours yet until the sun would set over the mist-shrouded moors, but the chill clung to her skin and filled her lungs. Her breath blew out in little bursts, grey against grey.

The path was at least visible in the watery sunlight, the mist close but not so obscuring that she could lose her footing in it. Aziraphale kept her eyes firmly on the ground. She was determined not to make a fool of herself like she had before, especially if Crowley wasn’t going to be there to save her again, and she examined every patch of earth shrewdly for solidity before she put her foot down in the grass. It also stopped her from glancing over her shoulder every few seconds. 

The events of that night had haunted her every waking moment, becoming more and more tangled up with the nightmare that returned to her whenever she tried to rest. She saw the grasping, choking darkness of the shadow creatures—real or imagined, she hadn’t yet decided—in the blank white screen of her computer when she worked. She saw glowing yellow eyes in every light in the darkness, in the corners of her eyes.

She felt the fear in her heart. Whether it was her own fear or the fear she had seen on Crowley’s face in her dream, she didn’t know. 

Crowley kept returning to her as well. She seemed to be all jumbled up in Aziraphale’s head, an amalgamation. The woman on the cliffs, dark and mysterious. The Crowley in her nightmare, who had clutched at Aziraphale as though she was a lifeline, whose scream had shaken her down to her core. Then there was the woman in the castle. She was the biggest enigma of all, if Aziraphale was honest. Gruff, and yet kind. Disinterested, and yet laser-focused on her when she thought Aziraphale wasn’t looking. Cryptic and closed off, and yet someone that had been more honest than anyone Aziraphale had met here so far. 

_Not all monsters are in your head._

Aziraphale shivered, and this time it had little to do with the cold.

Her feet followed the familiar path to the castle almost on their own, with little help required from her wandering mind. She split from the main trunk and onto the smaller, thinner path that led up the castle’s craggy front entrance, all the way up to the door. 

Someone had installed an actual doorbell atop the ancient stone of the wall. Aziraphale pressed it and listened to the rather mournful tones that resulted echo through the interior of the castle, loud enough to be heard throughout. Then, she waited. A few minutes went by with not a stirring from within as far as Aziraphale could tell. She shifted the cake stand to her other hand to even out the load and tried again, another firm press and another few minutes spent waiting. 

Aziraphale sighed, disappointed but not terribly surprised, and turned away. Crowley had no real reason to answer the door for her. She had rescued Aziraphale, had given her hospitality when it had been needed. Tracy had said she was loathe to get close to people. Aziraphale had hoped that seeing her again might answer some of the questions that had been burning in her heart since that night on the moors, would put some of her unease to rest, but that was a lot to ask of someone who was practically a stranger.

No matter how much Aziraphale wanted to know her better.

She had made it most of the way back up to the main path when she heard the creak of the door opening behind her. She turned back around. 

Crowley looked, for lack of a better word, disheveled. She was dressed in a simple black shirt and trousers that she seemed to have just thrown on, considering the wrinkled state of them. Her hair was everywhere, too, curls tossed about her shoulders rather haphazardly, matching the way her sunglasses were slightly askew. 

Aziraphale thought she looked gorgeous, out-of-place sunglasses and all. It made her breath catch in her throat for just a moment, utterly taken.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, sounding a little surprised. “You’re back.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathed, feeling a somewhat off-kilter for a moment before she found her feet again. “Er—yes! I…wanted to thank you again for the rescue the other day. I brought cake!” She held the glass dome before her, demonstrating that it was indeed full of her rather clumsy attempt at baking.

Crowley stared down at it for a moment, nonplussed, then looked back up to Aziraphale. “…Yeah, alright. Come in,” she said, and stepped back to let Aziraphale through. 

Aziraphale crossed the threshold with something like trepidation fluttering behind her ribs. She had only gotten a glimpse at the main hall of the castle the last time she had been here. It was tall, spanning all three stories of the place, with a huge if rather dusty crystal chandelier cascading down above her head. The main hallway leading back was flanked by stairs which ascended to the second level, creating a sense of curvature that was rather lovely, overall. 

“Sorry about the dust,” Crowley said, closing and locking the heavy door behind them both, “I don’t get a lot of visitors, out here.” 

“That’s quite alright.” Aziraphale kept gazing around, rather enthralled. Whoever had decorated the place had done an excellent job of capturing the beauty of the past while acknowledging the needs of the future. Everything was stone or ancient dark oak or wool, as it would have been when the castle had first been erected, but with modern conveniences like electric lighting built in. 

“Can I take that?” Crowley asked from Aziraphale’s side, closer than Aziraphale had thought she was. 

She jumped, slightly. “Oh! Oh, er, yes, thank you.” She carefully transferred the tray to Crowley, her finger’s brushing against Crowley’s in the process. They were cool to the touch, which surprised her a little, though she wasn’t sure what else she should have been expecting with the cold. 

Crowley led her through a hall leading away from the entrance and into a large kitchen, obviously built to accommodate a whole fleet of servants in full swing. Now, it sat empty and rather cold, with almost no indications of life.

“Not a big cook?” Aziraphale asked, laying the cake down on the solid worktable at the center of the room. 

Crowley was rummaging around in some cabinets, pulling down a plate and a couple of mugs. The kettle on the rather intimidating stove did seem to be functional, at least, and Crowley flicked on the fire underneath it. “What? Oh, no. Not really. I used to like it, but that was—” she shut her mouth, abruptly, and turned away with a sour expression twisting her lips.

Aziraphale knew that she had said something wrong, had brought up some sensitive topic, and cleared her throat, switching gears. “Well, that’s alright. Erm—I was wondering, would you be willing to give me a tour of the castle? I’m a bit of a historian. Not that medieval architecture is really my area of expertise, mind, but still. It’s a lovely place.”

Crowley scrutinized her for a few moments, her expression unreadable. “…Alright,” she said, “Was there anything in particular you wanted to see?” 

“N-no! No, I just thought…well, anything you’re willing to show me is just fine.” 

Crowley nodded. She handed Aziraphale a mug of tea and a little pot of sugar, sipping absently at her own while she waited for Aziraphale to finish. 

Aziraphale was led back out into the main entryway, mugs still clutched in chilled fingers. On the opposite side of the entrance was a formal dining room big enough to fit more than a dozen people, though all its furniture had been draped in cloth to prevent the buildup of dust. She was shown a smaller dining room, more intimately set for no more than four, and a laundry, most of which looked as though it had been untouched for ages.

They headed up the stairway and Crowley showed her a few of the rooms along the long hallway she had seen before. They were mostly bedrooms like the one Aziraphale had been acquainted with before, though a few turned out to be entire suites decked out in royal style, also long abandoned. 

Finally, with some reluctance, Crowley led her up a rather more hidden set of stairs to the third and final floor. This one was obviously the floor in which Crowley spent the majority of her time. It was smaller than the others, compacted by the jutting of the turrets and towers which topped the castle, reducing it to a much more manageable if still rather opulent space for one. 

About half the floor was taken up by Crowley’s private suite. She had a massive four-poster bed draped in black silk sheets, which were still rumpled from Crowley having been apparently roused from them by Aziraphale’s arrival. Aziraphale felt a slight stirring in her gut as she stared at them a moment, then turned away, blushing. Attached to the bedroom were a large sitting room with a surprisingly fancy television and a bathroom with a tub big enough for three people to submerge themselves completely—something Aziraphale eyed with not a little envy.

Another of the rooms appeared to be Crowley’s library. Aziraphale gasped in delight as soon as she stepped into the cosy space, taking in the warm wood-paneled walls and the bookshelves absolutely stuffed with books. 

“Oh!” she said, delighted. She forgot herself for a moment and made a beeline for one of the shelves, running a gentle finger over the spine of the volumes she found there. “I didn’t know you read.”

Crowley gave a noncommittal sort of grunt, watching Aziraphale from the doorway. “It’s something to do, you know,” she said.

Her shelves told a different story. Aziraphale found the sort of thing one might expect to find in an old-fashioned library such as this one; treatises and atlases and other ancient leather-bound volumes of that kind. However, she also found many more diverse titles. Fiction ranging from the historical to the far-flung future were found throughout, carefully categorized alongside star charts and histories and rather fascinating anthropological works. 

“Well, I’d say you do a lot of it.” Aziraphale continued running her fingers over well-broken spines, thrilling at every title she recognized and all those new to her alike. “I’m not judging, mind. I’m a single woman living alone, you know, and I know how lonely it gets. Sometimes a book can be a friend when you need one.” Her wandering finger found a section of volumes that were all of a similar size and thickness, with no titles etched on their spines. Frowning, she moved to pull it out.

Crowley moved so quickly and so silently, Aziraphale nearly shouted aloud when her fingers clamped over her own wrist. As it was, she let out a surprised sort of yelping noise and jerked, her luckily emptied tea cup nearly tumbling right out of her hand. 

Crowley looked vaguely guilty at that. “Sorry,” she said, softly, “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’d…rather you didn’t touch those.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale gasped, still breathing hard from her moment of shock. She took in a few deep gulps of air, her pulse scattered and wild as it pounded its complaints, making her feel a little faint. “O-of course, my dear. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize they were—I didn’t realize they were off limits.”

“It’s okay,” Crowley whispered. She was gazing down at Aziraphale with that intense focus again, the kind that made Aziraphale feel as though she was looking right through her.

Aziraphale realized that Crowley’s hand was still clamped around her wrist, though she had long ago released the book. She cleared her throat. “Er—I’m quite alright, my dear,” she said, thinking that perhaps Crowley’s fascination was due to concern.

“What?” Crowley seemed to come back to herself. She released Aziraphale’s wrist as if it had suddenly burned her, stumbling back and away almost into the bookshelf behind her. 

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale realized she was still holding her wrist aloft, the places where Crowley’s grip had been tingling as blood returned to the skin, and lowered it.

Crowley wouldn’t look at her. “Fine,” she said gruffly, pushing her sunglasses further up her nose in a compulsive gesture and turning to stalk back towards the door. Aziraphale thought that she might storm right out, but she hesitated at the entrance to the hallway and said, “That’s the tour. I’ll meet you back at the kitchen.” 

And she was gone.

Aziraphale stared at the empty door frame for a few moments, bewildered. Had she said something wrong? Touching those certain volumes had obviously upset her, but Aziraphale didn’t think she’d been actually angry about it. She had seemed…distracted, almost, rather than angry. Until she had come back to herself, that was.

Pondering this, Aziraphale found her eyes drawn back towards the thick, leather-bound volumes that had been slotted so neatly beside each other on the shelf. She reached out a hand towards one, almost without thinking, then stopped. Was she really willing to sacrifice Crowley’s privacy for her own curiosity?

She warred with herself for a few more moments before she let her arm drop, sighing. Her footsteps seemed to echo strangely through the dimly-lit hallway as she turned to follow Crowley back down the stairs.

By the time she rejoined Crowley in the kitchen, she appeared to have regained her composure. She was taking delicate slices out of Aziraphale’s cake and laying them out on a couple of plates. She didn’t look up when Aziraphale entered. “There’s one more room I could show you, if you like,” she said, her tone carefully neutral.

“Alright.” Aziraphale hovered in the doorway a little awkwardly, wishing that Crowley would look at her again. The conscious avoidance was fueling her fears that she had done something unforgivably wrong, had committed some unknown faux-pas that Crowley was simply too polite to kick her out for. 

Crowley carefully placed the cake on a little tray and passed out of the kitchen without a word, brushing by Aziraphale in the process. Aziraphale trotted after her.

“I’ve been meaning to say,” Aziraphale panted, trying to keep pace with Crowley’s much longer legs, “the renovations that have been done to the place have been quite lovely. Was it your mother’s work?”

There was something of a suspicious tone in Crowley’s voice as she asked, “Who told you about my mother?”

“Oh! Er—” Aziraphale remembered Crowley’s previous annoyance at Tracy’s indiscretion and changed tacks, “j-just someone about the town, I think. Can’t remember who.”

Crowley sighed, heavily. “Tracy. I really have to talk to her about spilling my personal business about.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it,” Aziraphale said, swallowing, as Crowley brought them up to a wide door at the back of the castle that she had passed right by before, “we were only having a bit of a friendly chat at the pub and she—oh!”

Aziraphale stopped short, gaping. Crowley had opened the door onto Paradise. It was a greenhouse, or something similar, glass panels separating an enclosed space from the grey sky and the open ocean beyond. It had a little table at the center set for two, and every other inch of space within was taken up by plants. 

There were more than Aziraphale had ever seen. Tropicals, succulents, delicate vines that criss-crossed their way across carefully placed trellises and bulbous trees that spread spikes across an entire corner. She stopped to just stare for a moment, breathing in the intoxicating scent of the flowers and foliage that filled the space.

Crowley looked around at the plants as well after setting her burden on the little table, her expression still reserved but with a tinge of pride in her voice. “This is my garden. It’s not much, but I’ve worked hard at it.”

“Not much?” Aziraphale breathed, still somewhat awestruck. “Crowley, this is beautiful! I’ve never even seen some of these…” She reached a hand out to stroke a delicate finger over the leaf of a thin, vining plant, whose slightly furred edges tickled her skin.

Crowley’s lips curled upwards, just a tiny bit, into an almost imperceptible smile. “Come on,” she said, settling herself into one of the wrought iron chairs and reaching again for her tea, “have a sit. Might as well try this cake, since you’ve brought it.”

Not exactly the most ecstatic praise, but Aziraphale would take it. She sat down in the chair opposite Crowley and pulled her little plate towards herself. Crowley seemed finally able to face her again, turning to watch as Aziraphale cut herself a neat little chunk out of the cake with her fork, though it was difficult to tell exactly where her gaze was with the sunglasses still in place. Her expression was impassive and just as unapproachable as it had been the entire visit. 

For lack of anything else to do, and still feeling a bit awkward in the oppressive silence, Aziraphale brought the bite of cake to her lips. Her eyes drifted closed of their own accord as the burst of chocolate and raspberry burst across her tongue and she made a soft little noise of delight before she swallowed it down. When her eyes drifted open again, Crowley seemed to have frozen in place with a forkful of cake halfway to her mouth, staring at Aziraphale.

“I think I did quite well, if I say so myself,” Aziraphale said, with a slightly concerned little smile. “I’m not much of a baker, if I’m honest. I’m rather pleased it’s edible at all. Well, go on, try it!”

Crowley looked down at the loaded fork Aziraphale had indicated. She brought the fork to her lips, chewed a few times, and swallowed with some apparent difficulty. “It’s good.” Crowley’s voice was strained. “Er—thanks for bringing this over.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale’s smile fell, a little, but she made herself dig into the next bite of cake with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. 

Crowley put down her fork. She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been staying home more. Staying off the moors.”

“Oh, yes. I must say, the other evening gave me a pretty significant fright. The…the wolves, or my imagination, or whatever. And the cliff, of course.” She took another bite of her cake.

“Is that why you’re wearing that cross?” 

Aziraphale looked up at her, surprised. She had nearly forgotten about the little silver cross that had been around her neck nonstop for the past several days. “I—I suppose so,” she admitted, uneasy, “It was a gift. From a friend. She said it might…she said I should wear it.”

Crowley didn’t move, but Aziraphale felt her gaze intensify somehow anyway. It was an intangible sensation in the air, an awareness. A sudden sense of danger. “And what friend might that be?” Crowley said, her lilting voice light.

“Erm, h-her name is Anathema.” Aziraphale swallowed, nervous for a reason she couldn’t quite pin down. “She practically rescued me on my first night in. My car broke down and she picked me up from the side of the road.”

Crowley tilted her head slightly. “Make a habit of being rescued by mysterious strangers, do you?” 

Aziraphale sputtered slightly. “That’s—I mean I don’t—” She narrowed her eyes at Crowley. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

“I am a bit,” Crowley admitted breezily, giving another one of those rather haunting little smiles. Aziraphale was relieved to see it, even if it came with teasing; it meant Crowley likely wasn’t angry with her after all. Crowley went on, “I think I’ve heard of this Anathema, though. Tracy’s told me about her. Says she’s smart.”

“I think she’s some sort of professor or something.” Aziraphale frowned a bit, remembering her first night in the area. “She knew an awful lot about ancient biblical lore, anyway.”

Crowley swirled the tea around in her cup, absently. “Did she now? Interesting.”

“I suppose.” Aziraphale’s hand drifted up to her neck, running careful fingers across the smooth silver surface of the cross. “She was a bit of an odd one, if I’m honest. Though she—” Here Aziraphale cut herself off, suddenly wondering if it would be wise to talk more about Anathema to Crowley. She had seemed to know more than she’d let on. Aziraphale wasn’t sure what bad blood could possibly exist between the two of them, but she would be loathe to add to it.

Crowley took another tiny forkful of cake. She was still acting rather aloof and nonchalant, but Aziraphale could sense her focus beneath the facade. “Go on. What was she?”

“Well,” Aziraphale continued carefully, “she was right. When she gave me this,” she lifted the cross from her neck, holding it up as far as the chain would allow, “she warned me that there might be dangerous things in Killech. She said—well, she told me what had happened to the previous owner of the cottage.”

“I thought he ran off?” Crowley was avoiding her eyes again.

“Apparently he disappeared entirely,” Aziraphale said, shivering a little despite the comfortable warmth of the space, “Quite frightening, if you ask me.”

Crowley hummed in what might have been agreement. “Maybe Tracy’s right, then. Smart. And worried about you, if she gave you that necklace.”

Aziraphale thought back to the look on Anathema’s face when she had begged Aziraphale to wear the cross, to stop her walking. “Yes, I suppose she is. Tracy seemed to be, too, when I spoke to her.”

“Tracy’s pretty smart herself.” 

Aziraphale looked at her for a moment. Crowley was fiddling idly with her teacup, with her nails, still looking anywhere but at Aziraphale. It made her wonder if there was something about her that made Crowley nervous—or if there was something about herself that she thought might make Aziraphale nervous.

“Would you do something for me, Crowley?” 

It was Crowley’s turn to be surprised. She turned to actually look at Aziraphale again. “I suppose that depends. What would you like me to do?”

Aziraphale hesitated for a moment, her courage flagging, but she pushed on. “Would you take off your glasses for me?”

Crowley tensed, visibly. Her shoulders curled in on themselves, defensively, and her hand clenched. “Why?” she asked, tersely.

“Because I—” Aziraphale paused. Why did she want Crowley to take off her sunglasses so badly? Why was it haunting her so very much? Was it simply because she didn’t _know_? Was it because she couldn’t shake the feeling that Crowley was hiding her eyes with those sunglasses she never seemed to remove? “Because I can’t get the eyes from my dream out of my head,” she said, eventually. “Because I need to know. I’m sorry, if it’s too much I can—”

“No.” Crowley cut her off. “No, it’s…” She sighed. “It’s alright.” She shifted in her chair, then looked up at Aziraphale sharply.

Aziraphale shivered as she felt the intensity of Crowley’s gaze wash over her once again. Despite the glasses, she could tell that Crowley was staring right into her eyes, and she found herself almost unable to tear her gaze away.

“My eyes are brown,” Crowley said, simply.

Aziraphale felt an odd, curious sensation zip up her spine, making her shiver. “Erm—alright?” Aziraphale responded, almost embarrassed by how much her anticipation seemed to be affecting her. She realized that she had leaned forward in her seat, nearly folded over the table, and sat back up in her chair with a frown.

Crowley didn’t give her the opportunity to ask any more questions, though. She reached up and slowly lowered the sunglasses, revealing a pair of absolutely beautiful honey-brown eyes, currently overflowing with sharp concentration.

“Oh,” Aziraphale breathed. There was a squirming sensation deep in her gut and a fluttering in her chest, but she wasn’t sure whether it was disappointment or relief. 

Or, as she was beginning to suspect with not a little bit of dawning horror, something else entirely. 


	5. Wolves in Sheep's Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anathema gives Aziraphale another cryptic message to detangle. A mysterious parcel forces her to come to terms with the fact that her fears may not be so unfounded after all...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter CWs: POV anxiety attack, brief instance of a character being held in place against their will (more detailed CW in end notes).

The night had been cold enough that the ground crunched beneath the heel of Aziraphale’s thick boots as she walked, the first fingers of winter wrapping themselves across the landscape in the form of a mid-Autumn frost. The streets of Killech were practically abandoned, the chill scaring away any leisurely strollers or hangers about from being outside, encouraging them all to stay inside by their fires.

Aziraphale took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp air as she walked from her car to the little post office. She had never been any great fan of winter. In London, the coming of the season usually meant a horrible driving sleet that would slick up the roads and sidewalks, playing merry hell with the traffic. It meant rampant consumerism and nauseatingly chipper music. It meant memories, once beautiful, long ago gone sour.

Here, though, now, Aziraphale found she rather enjoyed the sharpness of the cold in the air. The smell of the frost mixed enchantingly with the salt of the sea and the gentle, earthy scent that wafted up from the grasslands further inland, and the result was almost calming. Grounding. Perhaps the chill kept her more firmly in her own body, or perhaps it reminded her of something she could no longer fully remember. Aziraphale wasn’t sure. Either way, she felt a comfortable sense of calm as she pushed her way into the warmth of the little town’s only post office.

Killech’s post office was a tiny affair run by a single, bored-looking young woman that had avoided all of Aziraphale’s attempts at conversation thus far. She took Aziraphale’s name and shuffled off into a back room, then returned a few minutes later with a bundle of mail, which she looked down at with a frown.

“Something wrong with it?” Aziraphale asked, nervously tapping her fingers along the counter, “I know there’s been some confusion with the address...”

The young woman shook her head. “No, nothin’ like that. This one says it was left in the after-hours box ‘ere at the office, not delivered. Had your name an’ address.” She removed a note from a smallish parcel at the top of the bundle, putting it aside as she slid the whole pile over to Aziraphale.

“Really?” Aziraphale peered down at it. It did indeed have her name on it--misspelled--and the address of the cottage written in a rather spidery and messy hand-written script. There was no indication whatsoever of who might have sent it. “How odd.” She thought of all the people in the town who knew her well enough to potentially drop something off at the post for her--Crowley, Tracy, Anathema. If any of them wanted to get something to her, surely there were simpler ways of going about it...

The young woman was quickly losing interest in the proceedings, turning back to poke at the mobile on the counter in front of her. “It ‘appens, sometimes. See you next week, Mrs. Fell.”

“It’s Miss Fell, actu--oh, nevermind.” Aziraphale decided it wasn’t worth the battle. She took her bundle of mail, mysterious parcel and all, and made her way back out into the watery sunlight that was just daring to peek out from behind the low clouds.

She was so absorbed by her ruminations on the mysterious parcel that she nearly ran headfirst into Anathema, who had just stepped out of a doorway and onto the side of the road in front of her. Anathema’s reflexes were quicker than her own and she managed to save them any casualty with a quick, steadying arm.

“Oh!” Aziraphale cried, flustered, as she gathered her thoughts back to the moment at hand. “I’m terribly sorry, my dear!”

“No, it’s okay.” Anathema seemed almost as out of sorts as Aziraphale did. She blinked at Aziraphale a few times before fully recognizing her, as though her mind had also been somewhere far away. 

Aziraphale cleared her throat. “Er--how have you been? How’s young Mr. Newton?”

Anathema quirked a quick smile. “He’s good. I was just going to meet him at the tavern, actually.”

“Ah, lovely. Mind if I walk with you?” Aziraphale asked, tucking the mysterious package beneath her arm, “I’m headed that direction myself.”

Anathema nodded. “Of course.” 

They took off down the otherwise abandoned lane, walking slowly; Anathema seemed as unbothered by the chill in the air as Aziraphale felt. Their breath rose above them in ethereal plumes as they moved. 

“Tracy told me you had a bit of a scare on the cliffs last week,” Anathema said.

Aziraphale felt a sharp spike of fear in her chest at that, but she suppressed it. “Oh?” she responded, as nonchalantly as she could manage, “And what else did she tell you?”

Anathema gave her a quizzical look. “Nothing. Just that you’d slipped and nearly gone over a cliff. Why, was there more?” 

“No!” Aziraphale cleared her throat, trying not to appear too relieved. She wasn’t sure exactly why it felt so important that Anathema not find out about her little incident--there was certainly a little of her own pride involved, considering that Anathema had entreated her to be careful that very same day, but she didn’t think it was that alone. There had been a tension in Crowley’s frame when she had heard Anathema’s name from Aziraphale’s lips. Something was going on between them, aside from Crowley’s obvious penchant for privacy, that Aziraphale was loathe to prod at without reason. “Er--no, that’s pretty much it.”

Anathema hummed, acknowledging. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re wearing the necklace I gave you, anyway. Though I suppose I should have warned you it doesn’t work against cliffs.”

Something about that last sentence made Aziraphale pause her steps.

“What _does_ it work against?” she asked, bringing her free hand up to stroke at the silver, a habit that had been growing into a compulsion over the last few days.

It took Anathema a few moments to register that Aziraphale had stopped walking. She turned back around, looking confused. “What?”

“The necklace. You said it doesn’t work against cliffs. Yet you were so insistent that I wear it, for my protection. So what _does_ it work against?” Her voice was steady, firm but not angry. 

Anathema looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment. “It’s--it’s a little hard to--”

“A little hard to explain?” Aziraphale finished for her, sighing. “Well. At least you didn’t try to tell me it was witches with excess nipples.”

“Listen Aziraphale, it’s just really--what?”

Aziraphale waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. What were you saying?” 

Anathema shook her head, as if clearing it of the sudden vision of many-nippled witches. “It _is_ hard to explain, and you probably wouldn’t believe me if I tried. But I swear to you that it is for your protection. There are certain things...” She bit her lip, looking troubled. 

Aziraphale patted her arm. “It’s alright, dear. I’m sorry if I ruined your afternoon. Say hello to Newton and Tracy for me, won’t you?” She started to turn away, feeling a little guilty.

Anathema stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Wolves in sheep’s clothing,” she said. 

“What now?”

“That’s what it protects you from.” Anathema looked back at the tavern, just ahead of them. “I should go. I’m late.”

Aziraphale nodded, silently, and watched as Anathema walked away. “Wolves in sheep’s clothing,” she muttered to herself. She shook her head, utterly lost, and kept moving back towards her car. 

\----------------

The mystery parcel that had been left for her at the post office went almost completely forgotten until Aziraphale was back in the cottage, her coat traded for a woolen house shawl, her silver cross tucked carefully in her jewelry box, and the hob beneath the kettle burning away merrily. She was still turning over Anathema’s last words in her head; _Wolves in sheeps’ clothing._ Something about that line seemed terribly familiar to her, the particular phrasing of it standing out in a way that she couldn’t quite place.

As she was ruminating on it, her eye fell on the pile of mail that she had set on the kitchen table when she had arrived, and the mystery of the parcel came back to her. Curiously, Aziraphale carefully untied the string from the bundle and picked up the wrapped package. 

It was heavy, or at least heavy for how small it was, and the general size and shape of it reminded her of some of her denser tomes. She thought for a moment that it might be a revised edition of the manuscript she’d submitted a few months ago, sent from her publisher for her approval, but dismissed the thought immediately. It hadn’t been mailed. It had been _left_. If her publisher had come all this way to give her a book, why not see her directly?

She rummaged around in a drawer for a letter opener which she slid beneath the taped edges of the brown paper, freeing the plain, unmarked black box within. She wondered idly if this was some further strange behavior on the part of Anathema. Another cross, or some other mysterious and vaguely ominous object, which she wanted Aziraphale to have. Then again, she had seemed quite unaffected when Aziraphale had spoken to her...

Frowning slightly, she laid it down on the table. She slid the letter opener under the taped lid of the box, then lifted it to reveal a smooth bundle of what looked like black fabric packed tightly within. 

Aziraphale blinked down at the fabric. Carefully, she pulled at the top of it until it slid away, folding back away from the object it had been wrapped around.

It was a stone.

It was long and flat, almost rectangular. It was also _old_. The edges had obviously been hewn for human needs, chipped away into regularity, but time had softened them until they were smooth beneath her fingertips. 

Aziraphale had no idea what to think about this. Who on earth would have left her a stone, and why? She couldn’t fathom it. She turned the stone around and around again, feeling its flat planes and rounded edges. Again, she had the niggling feeling of familiarity, as though she had seen the stone before somewhere. It was a cool grey with little smatterings of slightly shiny minerals. A sandstone, she thought, though she was slightly fuzzy on why she thought that. 

Her eye caught on a little flash of white within the confines of the box, buried among the black folds. Setting the stone aside for now, she reached out towards it, pulling out a scrap of paper that had been beneath the stone in the box. It was a postcard. The back was utterly blank, no return address or note to give her any indication who might have gifted it to her. She turned the postcard over, wanting to see what was on the other side, and nearly dropped it. 

On the front of the card was an illustration of a pure white lamb. It was resting, its front legs curved beneath it in the watercolor grass. Its wide, innocent eyes stared balefully out at her. Somebody had taken a generous measure of blood-- _real_ blood, not paint, from the way it had started to crust and darken-- and smeared it across the image. The ugly streak stretched from the lamb’s back haunches all the way to its throat, where the defacer had left an extra smudge, as if drawing it across the lamb’s neck for slaughter. 

She stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending, before some semblance of meaning sunk in.

The postcard fluttered to the ground from her suddenly limp hand. Aziraphale took a step back, away from the table, then another, trying to get away from the image despite it sitting innocuously on the ground. Her mind swirled. She felt something catch in her throat, a lump that filled the space there and made it hard to breathe, and she choked on it, sobbing. Her mind went immediately to the comment Anathema had made that morning-- _a wolf in sheep’s clothing_. What was a wolf to the lamb? 

Was this a warning, or a threat? 

It was getting harder and harder to breathe. She thought of the monsters from that night on the moors, the ones she had magnified in her mind. She had mostly managed to convince herself that they had been figments of her imagination. So-called “reality” had a way of doing that; it was so easy to convince yourself of things in the warm, safe light of day. Now, though, they seemed all around her, circling again. She could almost feel their hot breath on the back of her neck, see the glowing of their mesmerizing yellow eyes. Her back hit the wall behind her and her knees crumbled beneath her, depositing her into a heap on the floor.

She realized in an almost detached sort of way that she was trembling. She could feel it in her hands, in her lips. She could feel the panic climb its way up her throat. She tried to breath through it, blinking against the sudden blurriness in her vision. She needed help, she needed...she _needed--_

Aziraphale reached a shaking hand down to her pocket and drew out her mobile. She hesitated for a moment, unsure who to call. Who could she trust? Who did she even know, here? This seemed like the kind of thing that Anathema could help her with, and was perhaps even something she could use to get some measure of actual information out of her, and yet...

And yet, it wasn’t Anathema she wanted right now.

Crowley answered on the second ring.

 _“Aziraphale?”_ she said immediately, _“Do you know, when I gave you this number, I didn’t think I’d be getting a call from you so soon.”_

“I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, dear girl,” Aziraphale answered, unable to quell the shaking in her voice, “but I--there’s--” Her eyes fell on the postcard again. It had fallen image-up and the lamb’s wide eyes stared at her, the sick red of the blood gleaming in the industrial light of the kitchen. Her throat closed around the words she was trying to force out, around the tears that had appeared on her cheeks as if out of nowhere.

Crowley’s tone shifted from lightly teasing to concerned. _“Aziraphale? Are you alright?”_

A sob slipped out of Aziraphale’s mouth before she could stop it. She brought her hand up to cover her mouth, to try and stifle the sound through some sense of decorum that was probably beyond useless, but it was too late. Crowley had heard.

 _“Wait there,”_ she said, a strange thumping in the background telling Aziraphale that she had already started moving about. _“Whatever it is, I’ll be there as soon as I can, yeah? Is there anyone there with you?”_

“I-I don’t t-think so,” Aziraphale sniffled. She felt faintly ridiculous, sitting there on her kitchen floor, and more than a little concerned about just how much Crowley’s voice was doing to calm her nerves. She leaned into it anyway; at that moment it felt like the only thing tethering her to reality and away from the shadows in her mind.

 _“Okay.”_ There was a great _clunk_ and the sound of wind rushing past the speaker on Crowley’s end of the phone. _“Good. You just hold tight and I’ll be there in just a few moments. Can you breathe for me, Aziraphale? That’s it, just like that, just breathe...”_

Crowley spoke to her in low tones for quite some time. Aziraphale clung to her phone like it was a lifeline, listening to Crowley’s voice and the sound of the swirling wind. She mostly lost track of what was being said to her. Instead she just listened, letting herself sink into that soft voice and its comforting, lilting accent, timing her breaths to its even beat.

By the time Crowley’s knock came at the door, she was feeling significantly improved. There was still a tremble in her fingers and a slight hitch in her breath, but the worst of her tears had dried up. She struggled to her feet as the knocking came again, sharper this time, and staggered her way down the hall.

Crowley wasn’t wearing her glasses. That fact stuck out to her for some reason, the absence of those ever-present black covers striking enough to make her pause. Crowley’s honey-brown eyes ran over her in a quick, almost clinical assessment, then darted through what was visible of the house behind her. 

“Thank you.” Aziraphale’s voice was rough from her crying. 

Crowley’s roving eyes returned to her face, to the tear stains still colouring them. “For what?”

“For coming.” Aziraphale shifted in the doorway, a little awkwardly. “I didn’t--it’s probably silly, but I just--I couldn’t--”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley interrupted her, softly, kindly. “Why don’t you invite me inside and we can talk about it, yeah? Get some nice, comforting tea in you. Or maybe even something a little stronger.”

“Invite you--?” Aziraphale realized that she was still standing in the doorway, Crowley standing out on the veranda, and shook herself. “Of course,” she said, stepping back, “Yes, please come in. Sorry, I--well.” 

“It’s alright.” Crowley nodded to her as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her, shutting out the cold wind. She was in all black again, as seemed to be her way, draped in a black wool coat with a knit dress underneath. Her hair was about her shoulders again, the copper curls drawing Aziraphale’s eye as Crowley put away her coat. 

Crowley took another look at her, seeming to weigh something in her mind. She put a gentle hand on Aziraphale’s arm and steered her into the sitting room, settling her into a stuffed armchair. Aziraphale tried to protest, insisting that she didn’t need to be coddled, but was quelled by the pointed look she earned from Crowley.

Aziraphale allowed herself to be wrapped in an afghan that had been tossed over the back of the sofa. She watched as Crowley kneeled by the fire, carefully stacking kindling and wood from the basket by the hearth into the grate, and fiddled with the long matches until she could get a lick of flame to curl up amongst the logs. Aziraphale had a sudden, visceral flashback to the spare room she had woken up in at Crowley’s castle. 

She’d been buried in blankets and suffocated by the warmth of the fire then, too. Aziraphale had assumed it was just an attempt on Crowley’s part to stave off any potential shock Aziraphale might face--pressure and warmth went far in those regards. Now, though, watching Crowley poke at the young flames, she wondered if perhaps it had been more caring and intimate than she had initially thought.

Once Crowley was satisfied, she stood from the hearth, brushing herself off. She looked at Aziraphale, pointedly, and said, “Don’t move,” then walked past her towards the kitchen.

Aziraphale had no intention of moving. The warmth of the blanket and the fire combined with the effect of coming down from her panic were making her nearly sink into the armchair she was perched in, exhaustion suddenly tugging her down with it. She waited patiently as the soothing sound of a kettle boiling became louder and louder and eventually stopped. 

She had to force her eyes back open when Crowley popped back into the room, which surprised her; she hadn’t been aware of them closing. 

“Sorry,” Crowley said, looking at her with obvious guilt, “Er--I just wanted to know if you took your tea with milk or not.”

Aziraphale shook her head, clearing it. “With, please. Just a splash.” 

“‘Course.” Crowley disappeared again and returned a few moments later with two mugs of tea, one of which she pressed into Aziraphale’s grateful hands. 

There were a few moments of quiet between them as Aziraphale breathed in and out, letting the warmth of the tea and the soft crackling of the fire calm her, conscious of the way Crowley was looking at her from where she had perched on the sofa; intently, as though Aziraphale might try to bolt the moment she stopped. 

Finally, Crowley said, “I’m guessing this has something to do with the postcard that was lying on the ground when I went into the kitchen?”

Aziraphale let her breath leave her body, a controlled exhale, and nodded. “It came in the parcel, on the table in there.”

“Do you know who sent it?” 

She shook her head. “It was marked for me and left in the overnight box. No return address, no note. Must have been a local, though.”

“Or someone who happens to be in the area,” Crowley muttered, almost to herself. Her eyes turned far away for a moment, contemplative, before she seemed to shake herself. “Do you know what it’s about? It seems to have given you fright.”

“Would it not have have given you one?” Aziraphale shivered again, despite the soft cushion of warmth growing steadily in the room, and wrapped the blanket tighter about herself. “That blood was _real_. It would have been bad enough if it was just red paint, but that...”

Crowley sipped at her tea, absently. “Lamb’s blood,” she said. After a surprised glance from Aziraphale, she clarified, “Or at least, I’d assume. From the picture.”

“I have to hope that’s all.” Aziraphale sighed. There was a distinct aching pain growing between her eyes that she suspected would blossom into a pounding headache by morning, as it usually did when she’d had one of her panic spells. “Easy enough to get lamb’s blood from the butcher’s, I should think.” She didn’t sound terribly convinced, even in her own ears. 

“Could be.” Crowley’s expression was quite unreadable, even with her glasses gone, the intensity of her eyes the same as they had been the short while Aziraphale had been able to see them. 

Aziraphale swallowed, but nodded. “It’s probably nothing,” she said, feeling a sort of sinking sensation grow in the pit of her stomach. She stirred uncomfortably, suddenly quite aware of just how much Crowley had done for her over something that was likely just a figment of her own overactive imagination. Again. “Er--you don’t have to stay, you know. I’m really terribly sorry, making you come all this way for me. I’d hate to keep you.”

Crowley frowned. “Do you want me to go?”

The very thought of being left alone again made bile rise up the back of her throat, but Aziraphale fought through it. “You’ve done so much for me...” she started.

“That’s not an answer.” Crowley’s gaze was sharp, almost piercing, as her eyes pinned Aziraphale in place. “Do you _want_ me to go?” 

Aziraphale chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, catching it between her teeth while she found herself torn between politeness and her desire for company. She didn’t miss the way Crowley’s eyes flicked down to track the motion, lingering for a fraction of a moment before she raised them back to Aziraphale’s. “It...no,” Aziraphale finally managed, “No, I’d quite like it if you could stay with me a while. Here, I mean.”

“Alright.” Crowley seemed nearly pleased by that answer, or at least as close to pleased as Aziraphale could really remember seeing her, a gleam of satisfaction in the curve or her lips as she smiled. She leaned against the back of the sofa, her long limbs stretching out to take up more space than might be expected from her thin frame. “How have you been? Apart from receiving mysterious packages with ominous images of farm animals, I mean?”

That did manage to squeeze a small huff of a laugh from Aziraphale. “Not bad,” she admitted, cradling her cup close to her chest despite it being down to the dregs, “I was actually having a rather pleasant morning before this. I enjoy the cold and the wind, you know.”

“Do you?” Crowley seemed mildly surprised. 

“Yes. It’s not something that I used to take much notice of, before, but... well.” She looked down. “It’s nice here, despite everything. Wild.”

Crowley hummed, thoughtfully. “I’d have thought a Londoner would find all that a bit daunting. Or any city folk, now I think on it. Even the people who come up from Inverness can have a hard time with it.”

“Oh, not at all!” Aziraphale thought of cold steel and manicured lawns, of packed shopping malls reeking of humanity and greed. She thought of cozy bookshops, of the ashes they left behind... She cleared her throat. “No, I prefer it here, I think. I like looking out at the sea and knowing there’s nothing there trying to tame it. Nothing holding it back.”

Crowley looked at her for a few long, silent moments, just long enough that Aziraphale began to wonder if she had said something wrong. Finally, Crowley said, softly, “I’m glad you came here, then. Away from whatever it was holding you back.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened and closed a few times, unable to find the words to respond to that. 

Crowley watched her gape for a while, the barest quirk of a smile on her lips, then seemed to take pity on her. “You’ve certainly livened the town up a bit, I’ll tell you. Tracy hasn’t had anyone new to gossip about in years.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, weakly, “Well, I suppose I’m happy to be of service, then.”

“Mmm.” Crowley seemed to take notice of Aziraphale’s empty mug, and stood. “Let me fill that for you.”

Aziraphale offered it up, taking in a quiet breath as Crowley’s soft fingers barely brushed her own over the ceramic, causing a little shockwave to race up her arm. “Er--thank you.” 

“Y-yeah.” After a moment of seeming disorientation, Crowley cleared her throat, tucking the mug into the crook of her arm, and bustled off towards the kitchen again. “‘Course.”

They settled into an easy pattern of conversation after that. Once she felt confident that the worst of the panic had soothed, Aziraphale insisted that Crowley bring out the bottle of good whiskey she kept in her cabinets. She dug into it with much more gusto than Aziraphale had yet seen from her in regards to food or drink. It seemed to ease the ceaseless tension that Crowley carried about her shoulders, the weight that bowed her down and kept that knife-sharp intensity in her eyes.

Now she looked, if not fully relaxed, at least as though she wasn’t about to stand up and sweep dramatically off into the night. Her honeyed eyes were half-hooded, her hair wild. Their conversation had tapered off a little while ago, leaving a silence between them that was much more comfortable than Aziraphale might have expected. She wondered, through the slight fuzz in her brain the whiskey and the exhaustion had brought on, if she ought to be worried about that. She’d hardly known Crowley a few days, after all. It should have felt much stranger to have her here in her space this way. And she’d never been one to trust quickly or easily. Especially not since...

She shook her head, clearing it of that thought before it could take root. 

“You alright?” Crowley’s voice was even lower than usual, slowed slightly by the alcohol but still coherent enough. 

“Quite.” Aziraphale gave her a quick flash of a smile. “Just a memory. Nothing to worry about.”

Crowley looked over at her, curious. She seemed like she was going to dig further for a moment, going as far as to part her lips around a question, but seemed to think better of it. Instead, she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you. What brought you all the way out here? It’s not exactly where most people would choose.”

Aziraphale nodded. “You’re probably right--and that’s exactly why I liked it. I’d spent too long in London, I think. Too many people, too much noise. I wanted to go somewhere that...well, that...” _Somewhere the ghosts couldn’t find me_ , she thought, _living or dead_. “Somewhere I could get a little privacy to read my books,” she finished instead. 

“Fair enough, I suppose,” Crowley answered mildly, though she was watching Aziraphale with a rather odd look. “Don’t care much for cities, me. Not anymore.”

That caught Aziraphale’s attention. “That’s right, you travel for work, don’t you? I seem to remember Tracy saying something about that.” Saying it felt strange on Aziraphale’s tongue for some reason. Her image of Crowley was so inexorably tied to the vision of a woman in black stalking the moors and corridors of the castle. The idea of her doing something normal like waiting in a bank queue or getting on an aeroplane seemed almost... _wrong_ , somehow.

A flash of something like confusion passed through Crowley’s expressive eyes, but it smoothed out again momentarily. “Yeah, right. Spent quite a bit of time in London, Edinburgh, Rome, Munich...been a bit all over, me. Never for very long, though.”

“And that would be for your work as a...?” Aziraphale said, trying and likely failing to be delicate.

“Art dealer.” Crowley didn’t seem to want to elaborate beyond that. She took a slow sip of her whiskey, and let her eyes fall closed at the sharp, peaty bite of it. 

Aziraphale eyes tracked the movement of Crowley’s throat as she swallowed around the mouthful, the appreciative contentment about her expression, and found that she, too, was suddenly somewhat parched. She cleared her throat. “That sounds like quite an interesting occupation! I must admit I know next to nothing about what that might entail. Do you enjoy it?”

“Well enough.” Crowley let her eyes open again, languidly, and looked back at her. Aziraphale tried to avert her gaze from the long line of Crowley’s throat, but her eyes insisted on making a lengthy pitstop at her lips on the way to meeting her eyes.

She cursed every drop of alcohol she’d ever had. 

To her surprise, Crowley didn’t seem put out by Aziraphale’s rather shameful gawking. She swallowed again, without the whiskey this time, and Aziraphale swore the flicker in her eyes was a spark of returned interest. Whatever it was, though, it was gone in almost an instant.

“I should probably go,” Crowley said, setting down her now-empty whiskey glass with a sigh. “It’s late. And you should get some sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Aziraphale felt a little pang of disappointment in the pit of her stomach, but she nodded. Crowley waved her off and gathered up their various mugs and glasses, disappearing into the kitchen with them as Aziraphale extricated herself from the mountainous pile of blankets she’d been wrapped in. By the time she had stumbled out to the front entrance Crowley was there, tying her coat about her slim frame. The fluorescent light of the corridor cast an odd pallor over her features; Aziraphale thought she looked almost gaunt. On anyone else it might have been off-putting, but she somehow made it look...powerful.

The pit in her stomach grew as she watched Crowley get ready to leave. She didn’t think she was wrong about that spark she’d seen in Crowley’s eyes--she may not always have been the most perceptive person in the world, but she was hardly innocent. Crowley desired her. The question was, instead, whether Aziraphale wanted to do something about it. 

She saw Crowley reach for the door, and suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of not trying at all.

“Crowley?” 

Crowley looked up from where her hand had fallen on the doorknob. “Yeah?”

“Can I--that is, would it be alright if I--” Aziraphale warred with herself momentarily. The slight fuzz of the alcohol in her system was making her bold, but it couldn’t fully suppress the lick of anxiety that flickered up her spine. “You’ve been ever so kind to me since I came here,” she said, feeling the threat of a flush creeping its way up her cheeks already, “And I just thought--that is, I wanted to...” She moved a few steps closer to Crowley, close enough to reach out and touch.

Crowley’s eyes had gone wide, and they seemed as though they couldn’t leave her own even if Crowley had wanted them to. “What did you think, Aziraphale?” she croaked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“I thought that--” Aziraphale tried to plead with her eyes, hoping that Crowley would understand, hoping that she would _know_. Finally, she gave up. “Bugger this,” she said, and kissed her.

There was a long, drawn out moment (which was likely not more than a second or two) where Crowley didn’t respond at all. Her lips were cool beneath Aziraphale’s, perhaps surprisingly so after the warmth of the fire, but they were soft and they parted beneath her own all the same. Aziraphale started to pull back when Crowley didn’t reciprocate, her mind spinning; had she read the signs wrong after all?

Crowley stopped her retreat with a gentle but firm hand at the back of her head. Their eyes met for a split second--that honey-brown gaze filled with a truly dizzying swirl of emotions--before she crashed their lips together again.

Aziraphale gasped as Crowley dove in without inhibition. Her tongue pressed at Aziraphale’s lips, questioning, as if testing the waters, before slipping inside. Aziraphale felt a _thump_ as her back hit the corridor wall behind her. She gripped at the lapels of Crowley’s coat as she was kissed soundly, entirely uncaring of her surroundings, focused completely on the warmth of Crowley’s mouth on her and the hands running a soothing path up her sides and over the back of her neck. 

The corridor was silent but for the heavy sound of their breathing and the crackle of the fire from the sitting room. Aziraphale wrapped her arms around Crowley’s shoulders and rode out the tidal wave that was kissing her; her mind was fuzzy, overwhelmed and aroused, and she felt as though she had to cling on or she might somehow fall away. Crowley’s body against hers was a revelation. She was tall, and stong despite being so thin, her solid weight pressing Aziraphale into the wall making it difficult to get her thoughts any farther than _yes!_

Crowley moved off slightly to press a kiss to the sensitive spot by Aziraphale’s ear, earning her a breathy sort of moan. She pressed another to Aziraphale’s jaw, the curve of her neck where the line of her jumper hung low. Aziraphale gasped again as Crowley nosed at the soft, flushed skin there, hot breath spilling out and raising the fine hairs over her shoulder. 

Then, Crowley stopped moving altogether.

A solid few seconds passed in quiet stillness as Aziraphale waited. “...Crowley?” she asked. Crowley’s mouth was still pressed lightly to the skin of her neck, her lips slightly parted, though her breaths had turned ragged. Aziraphale tried to pull back to see what was wrong. She was stopped by the solid force of Crowley’s hands--the hands that had been so gentle a moment ago now gripped tightly at her shoulders, holding her in place, their slimness beliying the whipcord-strength below. 

Aziraphale squirmed harder. “Crowley,” she said again, fear creeping into her voice, “Crowley, what’s wrong? Stop it!” 

Crowley’s grip at her shoulders only tightened, her breath coming even faster. Aziraphale fought hard against her grip, to no avail. Then, desperately, “You’re scaring me!” 

That seemed to jog something, at least. Aziraphale nearly crumpled to the ground as Crowley released her all at once, flinging herself across the corridor in her haste to let go. Aziraphale could feel the places where Crowley had held her like a phantom grip. She would have bruises there tomorrow, she didn’t doubt. Her mind swirled and the bile rose in her throat once again, panicked.

Crowley stood across from her for a few treacle-slow heartbeats, panting hard and trembling from head to toe, before she managed to raise her gaze to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. 

She looked _horrified_.

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice hoarse.

Aziraphale frowned. Her heart was still racing, her emotions a confused swirl within her chest. “I-it’s alright, Crowley, but what--” 

She was too late. Crowley had turned and flung open the door beside her without waiting for an answer. She fled out into the night, practically running from Aziraphale’s doorstep, from Aziraphale’s arms.

It only took a few seconds for the darkness beyond Aziraphale’s cottage light to swallow her up entirely.

Aziraphale watched the spot she had disappeared to for a long while. She had thought--just for a moment, mind--but she would have sworn that last, flashing second, Crowley’s eyes had looked...

Yellow.

Aziraphale drew her shawl around herself, shivering, and went back inside. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW details: Crowley uses her supernatural strength to hold Aziraphale in place against a wall for several seconds. NO sexual assault, no other major associated warnings.


End file.
